Your Mama's Kitchen

 

Photo courtesy of Time Detective Gallery

I recently started listening to a podcast on Audible called "Your Mama's Kitchen."  It is a brand new podcast and only has two episodes available so far, and I have listened to both of them.  

The concept is that the host invite people of some celebrity or fame to visit with her about memories of their childhood kitchens, traditions their family had, what life experiences were had at the kitchen table, etc.  Then the guest shares at least one recipe from their mama's kitchen.  

It's quite interesting to listen to, and it brought back memories of my own childhood kitchen.  The first 10 years of my life we had a tiny, tiny kitchen for the five of us, and if the dishwasher door was open, there was no room to walk between it and the table.  

I know, I know.  We were blessed to even have a dishwasher.  I get it; right now it's beside the point I'm trying to make.  My mom made a lot of meals, holiday dinners, and birthday cakes in that kitchen.  

There was a built-in china hutch that served as the wall between the kitchen and the living room where all of the tableware was stored.  The refrigerator was at the narrow end of the kitchen, tucked right in next to the stove.  I can't imagine that was very energy efficient but it was the only layout that worked in that tiny space.  The work space was the counter area, maybe 8 or 10 feet long, with the sink at the very end of the counter right inside the front door.  

My strongest memory of that kitchen was when Baby Brother had a snit fit one morning.  Maybe it was because Big Brother and I were heading off to school and he had to stay home; I'm not sure.  Whatever set him off led him to chuck his wooden train toy across that kitchen where it connected with the bottom left corner of Dad's 55-gallon fish tank.  

Let's all take a collective gasp.  Fifty-five gallons of water came pouring out across the nicked and worn linoleum kitchen floor.  Big Brother and I hot-footed it out the door and left poor Mom to deal with (1) a cranky toddler, (2) a flooded kitchen floor, and (3) a dozen homeless fish.

It wasn't too many years after that when there was massive construction at Chez Brehmer.  Not only did Mom and Dad add onto the kitchen 8 feet in two directions, they had an attached garage built and resided the big old four-square farmhouse.  It was an all-summer project.  

Chet Briggs was the contractor; I don't know why I remember his name because I don't remember the name of the guy who worked with him every day.  

Every construction project has fits and starts.  I remember the first one that came up in this project was when the big picture window and the front door were framed in and Dad didn't like the layout.  After much discussion and scribbling numbers on a piece of paper, they approved having Chet switch them around.  It was a delay and an extra cost, but I remember how much Dad enjoyed being able to look out that picture window in the evenings after chores and see all of his cows content and peaceful in the pasture.  

They also had an extra cost to replace one of the garage windows because their favorite daughter was playing floor hockey with a broom and a superball that ended badly.  Broken window, bad words, and a butt-swatting.  

The garage was the summer kitchen.  All of the appliances, the table and chairs, and all the tableware were moved to the garage, and that's where we dined for the summer.  It was cooler for Mom to do her canning that summer because she could open up the overhead garage door and let the breeze in.  And the bugs, but she preferred the breeze and put up with the bugs.  

I've talked before about the conflict of favorite colors in our house.  Mom like red/orange/yellow and dad liked blue.  Ask anyone who visited our house after the kitchen remodel, and they will all say, "It was orange."  No lie.  The soffit was panted Allis Chalmers orange, the countertops were more of a flame orange with a crackled effect, and the front door was blaze orange with white accent squares...easily seen from the end of our half-mile long driveway!

I have to give Dad credit because it had to be hard for him to sit in that orange kitchen when he would have preferred it to be blue.  But come to think of it, the bathroom was blue, so I guess they found a compromise.  

That kitchen remodel project has been on my mind a lot lately because we are going to be doing our own kitchen remodel this winter.  The plans are being drawn up as I write this, and we have had more than our share of...ahem...discussions about layout, materials, color choices, and cost.  

I have to take Captain's opinion into consideration because he does all of the cooking.  I do some baking and all of the canning, but little to no actual meal preparation.  However, I am not my dad, and I drew the line at a red kitchen.  Red is not in my color wheel and I would never be comfortable with that color scheme.  

My other two lines in the sand were that I wanted a double-basin, double-drainboard reinforced cast acrylic sink and no upper cabinetry except over the stove.  Before you raise your eyebrows at that, remember that I am fun-sized and have a hard time reaching the top shelf of the fridge much less the top shelf of an upper cabinet.  

Oh wait, there is one other line in the sand, and this one has been a major bone of contention.  I want the new flooring to be the same for the entire main floor (excluding our offices and my bathroom).  Captain thinks each room should have its own flooring.  Can we say "so 1980s"?

The other major upgrade we'll do is convert a bedroom closet into a pantry by closing it off in my office and opening it up in the kitchen.  That's not a hard line in the sand yet, but it could come to that.  

We'll see how it goes.  I had them start with all the bells and whistles in the plans and we'll cut back from there.  This is why I work part-time at Fareway, so I can have some of my bells and whistles!

This kitchen has served us well for 20 years, but it's getting tired, and I'm getting tired of it.  So we will give it a "freshen up" as my grandma used to call it.  

Great Expectations

 

Image from Pinterest

For the past few years I have been on a quest to find a copy of a book that I used to read to Molly and Bigger when they were in preschool and elementary.  I couldn't remember the name of it or the author, but I knew it was about animals in a barn making animal sounds at night.  

It was a building block kind of story that repeated the stanzas throughout like "the mouse squeaked and the horse neighed."  And then the next page would be the mouse, the horse, and a duck.  Or something like that.  And I knew there was a specific term for that kind of story, but I didn't know what that was either.  

As Cubby got old enough to have books read to her and to start reading, I really, really wanted to get my hands on a copy of it and was so frustrated that I could not pin it down. 

Image courtesy of Pinterest

Then, last week, I was telling one of my coworkers about it.  She is a whiz on the Google search, and you'll never guess what?!

YES!

She found it on Amazon!  I was so happy and thrilled I bounced in my office chair and cried happy tears.  Of course I ordered it immediately from Amazon.  It's called Inside A Barn In The Country.

Image taken from Amazon

When I took my lunch break, I texted Molly to see if she was available for a phone call, and she was.  When she got on the phone, I was babbling nearly incoherently I was so excited.  After I calmed down and actually got the whole story out and said, "Isn't that awesome?"  what I got from my darling daughter was "Suuuuure, Mom.  That's great."  

Can you feel the love?

Then she went on to say how she thought I was going to tell her I found a copy of the book about the boy who visited a duck in the pond every day and one day the boy didn't come so the duck wandered up to the house and found the boy sick in bed.  

Huhn...I sense another quest in my future.  

Her lack of enthusiasm couldn't squash my thrill at my good fortune, so I called Bigger to tell him about it.  

First we had to chat about his recent week-long ice fishing trip with two different groups of friends, and then I got down to brass tacks.  

"Remember that book I read to you guys every night for months?"

"Oh yeah, the one about the farm and it had puzzles and mazes and this one optical illusion where if you held the book and moved it clockwise, the tractor tires looked like they were spinning."

No, but I see a second quest on my horizon.  

When I explained which book it was, his response was a lackluster, "Yeah, I don't remember that."

Image courtesy of Pinterest

It made me think back to my own childhood and what books I remember reading.  There was The Firehouse Cat for sure.  

Then there was the one about the firefly that was used as a train lantern signal or something.  

And the one about the elephant that kept escaping from the castle courtyard by stacking big ice blocks up and climbing over the wall.  

Oh, and there was one about a chicken and her pocketbook who used an umbrella to float to town for her groceries.

We also had a really scary kind of one about two crows who couldn't have babies because a snake kept eating the eggs, so one day they made eggs out of clay and the snake ate those and died.  Yeah, that's a real warm and fuzzy tale for a kid to read, isn't it?!

Image courtesy of Pinterest

I don't care how much of a buzz kill the kids' unenthusiastic response to my newest purchase was, I have a reminder of good times from their childhood in my possession and that makes me very happy.  

Image courtesy of Pinterest

Much Ado About Nothing

Photo courtesy of Daily Tidbit

Isn't this weather amazing?  Captain and I were enjoying what will probably be the last nice night on the deck.  We were working on solving world problems, throwing the ball for Miss Lucy, and generally relaxing.  

Lucy suddenly went into a fit of barking and ran around the corner of the garage toward the barn.  Since we'd had a couple of baby calves escape earlier in the evening, I figured one of the little stinkers slipped his collar again and was wandering around by the barn.  

I went over to the corner of the garage to see which calf it was...and froze.  Lucy had her hackles up and was barking at a smallish dark object at the bottom of the barn steps.

I hollered for Captain to bring a flash light because Lucy had a coon in her sights and I didn't want her to tangle with it.  He came haring off the deck in his socks, sloshing beer from the can in his hand, trying to find the flashlight app on his new smart phone.  

Photo Courtesy of Animal Net

Lucy came back to me with her ball, having lost interest in the critter by the barn.  As Captain aimed his cell phone flashlight toward the barn, there was a glint that we took to be the coon's eyes.  

I've got my eye trained on this critter in case it charges toward us while Captain is tearing through the house looking for his trusty .22 rifle.  He found a shotgun but has no ammo for that, and he found .22 ammo but no gun.  

Photo courtesy of Make A Meme

Now we have a dilemma.

I'm starting to freak out because Lucy has remembered the critter and is circling closer and closer.  We're talking within 5 feet of the thing.  I was holding my breath waiting for a battle to ensue that Lucy wasn't going to win.  

When Captain came back out with a stronger flashlight, I asked him why the coon wouldn't have moved with all the commotion going on, and his reply confirmed my fear:  it's rabid.  

Oh boy.  

As we both cautiously peeked around the corner of the garage with the stronger flashlight, we saw...

...a black 5-gallon pail tipped over and rolling around in the breeze.  

Yeesh O'Pete...

Thankfully all is now well again at the Brogan Ranch!

Disconnecting

The entrance to the State Park

Captain and I decided we would sneak away for a quick camping trip before fall harvest kicks into high gear.  Plus, it's our anniversary on the 17th, so this was to celebrate that, too. 

We had reservations for a camper cabin at Beaver Creek Valley State Park just outside of Caledonia.  I have been to Caledonia one other time in my life for the wedding of one of Captain's classmates.  Which reminds me, it's their anniversary coming up, too!  Happy Anniversary, Twylla and Jeff!

Anyway, we left after chores were done Monday morning and headed for LaCrosse first.  I wanted to show Captain the VRBO where me and Gammy and our friends stayed when we had a girls weekend in June.  We cruised around old town for a bit and then ate lunch at a Taco John.  It's been ages since I've had Taco John potato oles, and they were just as good as I'd remembered.  

Next we needed to hit Fleet Farm.  Oh, sorry; on that side of the Mississippi it's Farm & Fleet.  Anyway, it was just down the road away from the Kwik Trip where we stopped for gas, only Captain got exit-happy and turned too soon.  We ended up back on I-90 headed for Madison.  No big deal, I said.  Just do an up-and-down at the next exit.  

Which we did.

Five miles down the road!  

Oh well.  We got back to where we needed to be, got our stuff at Farm & Fleet before heading to LaCrescent for some apples.  We like Bauer's Apple store right as you come into La Crescent, but it was so early in the season that they only had a limited number of varieties out.  I had wanted some Haralson's for baking, but we left with a bag of First Kiss instead.  That's the new variety from the University of Minnesota, who also brought you the Honeycrisp apples.  

From there it was on to Caledonia.  As we had gone on our travels, Captain commented on how he was surprised there was no one in the fields at all.  He thinks the real rush of fall harvest is still three or four weeks away.  He's usually right about these things.  

During all this driving, I was working on a crochet project that I had started when driving home from our camping trip with some friends.  It was just a circle that I kept expanding each round to keep it flat.  I wanted to square it up, and I knew it could be done because I've followed other patterns that start with a circle and end up square.  

Google must have the answer.  Yes, yes it did.  There was a formula for the basic concept, but I had to actually do the math.  Yeah....I had the same look on my face that you do!  We all know that math is not my friend.  

When something starts out "figure out," I know I'm going to struggle!

It took three starts and a lot of scratching out numbers with a pen and paper, but I actually got it figured out by myself!  

When we got to the State Park, the office was closed/unmanned.  I suppose in the off season, it's hard to keep them staffed full time.  I went to pull up the reservation details from my Gmail, but I had ZERO cell service.  Not even a shadow of a bar of reception.  

All rightie then.  

Since there was only one cabin in the whole park, we knew that's the one we wanted.  We did the on-your-honor payment for firewood and went to find our site.  

I love camper cabins.  You get the rustic experience of cooking over a fire or on a camp stove but you don't have to sleep on the ground, and you can go inside to crochet when it gets dark and/or cold.

We got unpacked, we realized that (1) we didn't have any potatoes, (2) Captain needed to call Bigger about a sick calf he had to treat, and (3) given the lack of cell service, Captain needed reading material.  Back to Caledonia's Dollar General we went.  

When we finally made it back to camp, we still had some time before we needed to start supper, so we decided to explore.  Captain had seen a trail called Switch Back Trail near the entrance to the park that was less than a mile round tip.  Awesome, sign me up.  

There should be a disclaimer about how treacherous this trail really is!

Unfortunately, neither one of us read the description of the trail in the park literature or we would have known it was going to be trouble.  We didn't know that it would be "narrow trails with steep inclines" most of the way up.  

I'm okay hiking uphill, but I am not okay hiking uphill when the drop off is inches away from my feet.  I had to put my crocs in 4-wheel drive halfway up the hill!  Plus, I don't like heights and tend to get vertigo in dicey situations like that, so several times I had to stop and reorient myself and let go of the small tree trunk I was clinging to.  

When we finally got to the top, I was too pooped out and too dizzy-ish to even take a picture of the view, which was phenomenal, by the way.  

I will say the trek down was better than the trek up in that the trail was wider, but it was just as steep and the backs of my thighs and calves were screaming by the time we crossed the bridge back to the campground.  

When we got back to the cabin, I noticed a historical marker a couple of sites away, so we went to investigate that.  It was about a natural spring just ahead in the limestone.  Oh my goodness, what clear water!  Just the sound of the water cascading out of it's opening in the hill and down over some rocks into the stream was relaxing.  

This is where the natural spring comes out of the hill and starts the stream

Then it was back to the campsite for some quiet time before supper.  This is a new concept for Captain.  He's a doer by nature and just sitting and relaxing with a book or magazine is a foreign concept to him.  But he got the hang of it just fine!

My job for supper was to make the hamburger patties.  Captain took care of the sweet corn.  I thought he was going to shuck it and boil it, but he left it in the husk and put it on the grate over the fire.  Interesting!  He got the grill started and was working on other preparations when I noticed that the corn was on fire!  Some of the silks must have caught and started the husk.  Easily extinguished, and it gave the corn a smoky taste.

The whole time we were preparing and eating supper, there was a very angry red squirrel on the other side of the stream venting his frustrations at the top of his lungs.  I don't know what set him off, but he had things to say.  

After supper and dishes, Captain went to shower and I returned to my make-a-circle-into-a-square baby blanket.  It was going very nicely by this time.  

I don't know what it is about camping, but as soon as it gets dark, I'm tired.  Down in the Beaver Creek Valley, dark occurs before 8 p.m.  No way can I go to bed at 8 p.m.!  This is where the joy of a camper cabin comes in, because we both occupied ourselves for over an hour on quiet pursuits.  

By the time I was ready to go to bed, I needed to use the restroom first.  I don't do walking in the dark by myself, even with a lantern.  I need Captain to walk with me and carry the light.  Even so, as we were walking the quarter mile to the bathrooms, there was some kind of animal noise in the woods to our left and I jumped a foot and grabbed Captain.  

After he quit laughing, he told me it was an owl.  Man, the critters were out to terrify me!  

I was quite glad to get back to the cabin, lock the door, and snuggle in to sleep.  

Tuesday morning I woke up around 6, and so did Captain.  I thought about maybe going to the bathroom, and the next thing I knew it was 7:45!!  When I opened my eyes I was turned toward the wall, and there was a spider strolling across at my eye level.  Been awhile since I've gotten out of bed that fast!

Thankfully, Captain had the coffee ready and breakfast started.  I love having a man who does the cooking, and I'm not ashamed to say so.  While Captain worked on breakfast, I pulled out the State Park memory book Captain gave me for Christmas a couple of years ago.  

You think it's a sock, but it's doing double duty as a potholder!  

I filled in highlights from this camping trip (so far) including the corn on fire.  Afterwards, I flipped through other state park trips that I had noted.  And I discovered a pattern or theme.  

Captain has trouble with fire.  

At Lake Louise, he did something and started the grass on fire.  At Rice Lake, the Coleman lantern went haywire and he tried to extinguish it with Reggie's blanket and melted the blanket.  In the Black Hills, the Coleman stove blew up and started on fire.  

Thankfully, none of these incidents resulted in injury or mayhem.  

After a hearty breakfast of fried eggs, camper potatoes with green peppers, and bacon plus really good coffee, we cleaned up the picnic table and fire pit and then hit the trails.  

Behind our cabin there was a wide, mowed grass trail that ran along the creek back to the entrance to the campground.  From there, we decided to try the Hole In The Rock Trail.  

This one was a cross between the horrible Switchback Trail and the lovely grass trail.  Sometimes it was wide, sometimes it was as narrow as my foot.  There were freakishly scary footbridges--I had to close my eyes and hold onto the back of Captain's shirt to be led across--and rickety steps that tricked you into thinking they were sturdy when they weren't.  

But we saw vistas of awesome (in the truest sense of the word) beauty and enjoyed the quiet sounds of nature.  Well, except for that cow in the pasture next to the park who was seriously ticked off about something.  

The park literature had said that particular trail was one mile, but I'm pretty sure they lied and it was more like five miles.  At least, that's how it felt by the time we got to the other end.  

By then it was time to pack it all up and hit the road for home.  I vaguely remembered from my last trip to Caledonia that the road out of it was exceptionally curvy, so I asked to go home that way instead of back up to I-90.  

Captain humored me, and we drove from Caledonia to Houston on a lovely--yes, curvy--two lane road through miles and miles of trees.  I counted 45 curves between Caledonia and Houston!  I would imagine that a few weeks from now, that stretch of road will be brilliant with fall colors.  

The rest of the ride home was uneventful, and we were glad to drive back in our yard just over 24 hours after we left.  You wouldn't think such a short trip would be relaxing, but it always amazes me how much spending time in the great outdoors can bring me peace.  

If you ever need the kind of vacation where you absolutely leave the world behind, this state park is the place to do it.  You can't help but relax when it's the only think you have to do. 

Safe and happy travels, my friends!

 

Keep Your Head In The Boat

Photo courtesy of Clipart Zone

If you have been watching my personal Facebook page--and I know you all wait on pins and needles to see what titillating thing I post next--then you know there was recently a meme about Bigfoot possibly being a wookie who is lost.  I only bring this up because Bigfoot, and my fear thereof, was a recurring topic over the weekend.  

So, there was a big dragon boat festival in one of the Chicago suburbs this past weekend.  Normally our team competes in Dubuque or Fort Dodge, Iowa, but this year it was Chicago because the people who are going to "fill the boat" at the International Breast Cancer Paddlers Association festival in New Zealand taking place in March of 2023 need to actually meet and paddle together at least once before flying halfway around the world to try and win.  Are you with me yet?

See, there needs to be 20 paddlers in each boat in order to compete plus a steersman, plus a drummer, plus a flag catcher.  Most dragon boat teams aren't that big, especially the breast cancer survivor/supporter teams, so multiple teams combine to make  composite team.  

Our composite team consists of ladies from California, Florida, Michigan, Iowa, and Minnesota; possibly a couple of more states that I've neglected to mention.  Anyhoodles (I learned that word this weekend from Aunt EM, and I love it!), we all met for the first time Friday evening and did a practice run.  For 20 women who had never worked together before, I was impressed!  

Then we got the bad news.  The four supporters that we had in our boat would not be allowed to be in the boat for the races; they had to substitute in one of the community-based teams at the festival.  So now we were four people short in our boat and a brand new "team."  But we agreed to persevere.  We all got together and drowned our sorrows in wine and burgers before turning in early to get a good night's sleep.  

Bigfoot entered the conversation for the first time that evening as Jane, Aunt EM, and I chatted in the room.  I'm not even sure how it came into the conversation, but we stayed on that topic for quite a while.  Eventually, however, it was lights out and nighty-night because we had to be done with breakfast and at the event site by 7 a.m. Saturday morning. 

When we got to the breakfast buffet on Saturday morning, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, we heard other guests talking about being evacuated from their floors due to fire alarms going off.  I looked and Jane and Aunt EM to see if they'd heard the alarms...nope, we had all slept through it.  That's rather disconcerting!  Turns out not only was there fire alarms, fire trucks, police cars, and EMTs involved, there was also blood in the stairwell.  

My first thought was "Crap, my true crime obsession followed me to Schaumberg."  Then I realized that was ridiculous, and I went to my second thought, "Dammit, Bigfoot got loose and into the hotel."  Much more reasonable theory, right?!  

Rumors were flying but nobody could pin down the truth.  Since Aunt EM wasn't joining us at the event site due to attending a baby shower in nearby Des Plaines, she said she would take the opportunity to interrogate (see...true crime stuff!) the desk staff and housekeeping staff about what was what.  

We left her to that and headed to the lake.  We were early enough that we got excellent parking just across the sidewalk from our canopy tents.  There were six other breast cancer survivor (BCS) teams competing as well as 16 community teams.  Some of the community team sponsors were Walgreens, US Bank, and Dekalb.  One team that was absolutely inspiring to watch was the Adaptive Adventures teams made up of disabled persons.  We'll circle back to this in a little bit.  

We had some time to have coffee and rolls--did I mention there is much food involved in these events??--and watch the first couple of races.  The races for the day consisted of two 500-meter races and two 200-meter races.  The 500-meter races were in the morning, and the 200-meter races were in the afternoon.  Good thing because I wouldn't have survived if it had been the other way around.  

Our team captain and her husband got everyone lined up in order, we did some stretches.  Okay, I'll be honest, everyone else did stretches, I raised my arms up and down a couple of times.  A top-fit athlete I am not!  Then the captain went over the rules and some etiquette tips.  Then she says, "If we capsize, stick with your bench buddy and stay with the boat."  Well, I'd never heard that before, and I was a bit discomfited by it to say the least!  Mainly because I'd probably be the one to swamp the boat and I would have PTSD flashbacks to the canoe trips of my youth with the Potsdam peeps when tipping someone's canoe over was the pinnacle of accomplishment.  

Photo courtesy of https://www.record-courier.com

Anyhoodles, we got lined up and loaded in the boats and paddled out to the start line.  It takes some major choreography to get four dragon boats line up so there isn't one with its nose further out than another's.  That's up to the race staff, and they aren't afraid to bark at you if you aren't fast enough following their directions.

Since math isn't my strong suit--which also came up in conversation over the weekend--I Google the conversion of meters to yards, and 500 meters is 546 yards and change.  For all of you Packers, I mean Vikings, fans out there...that's 5-1/2 football fields.  

Yes, we came in last.  However, I want everyone to keep a couple of things in mind.  (1) We were paddling together for the very first time, and the fact that we made it 500 yards only 3 seconds behind the other boats wasn't too shabby.  (2) We were four people short in our boat versus the other three boats that had all 20 people paddling.  (3) We are mostly middle aged women who aren't toned athletes.  

As we were paddling back to the loading dock and I was gasping for air like a landed guppy, I saw the Adaptive Adventures team loading their boat, and I told myself to quit whining.  Those paddlers were being carried from wheelchairs to the boat, or walking on crutches with help to the boat.  There were prostheses and canes, and they were game to go out there and give it their all.  If they could do it, by God so could I.  

We had a little bit of a rest before the second 500-meter race, and that consisted of drinking a lot of water and hitting the porta-potties frequently.  The phrase I heard tossed around was "drink and pee, and no IV."  There must be some retired nurses on our team.  

We went out and finished the second 500-meter race, still came in last, but we improved our time by 2 seconds.  I know that doesn't sound like a lot, but many of these races are decided by hundredths of a second, so it was a BFD.  

Before there was a lunch break, the did the survivor's ceremony.  All seven boats were loaded up, each survivor was given a pink carnation (can we say, ear worm?), and we maneuvered out just off shore as a group, holding all the boats together.  The emcee read a poem written by a survivor and then they played a song called Paddles Up (I think) and we all tossed our flowers in the water to create a little pink carnation blanket.  Many tears of gratitude for being alive and able to participate in such an event.  

Then it was lunch time!  We trooped back to the tent and filled up paper plates with sandwiches, fruit, crackers, cookies, bars, chips, etc.  There was another paddler who had brought her crochet project along, so we sat down and bonded over corner-to-corner patterns and the virus pattern.  More hydration, more potty breaks, and some good laughs in the tent.  Then it was back to finish up with the 200-meter races.  

We came in last in the first heat but still with a better time again, and we came in second of three in the last heat!  Okay, in the spirit of transparency, that's because the third boat veered off course into the weeds.  Still, we had an improved time.  And we had fun, so we were winners even if we didn't get any medals.  

While we were back taking the canopy tents down and loading up chairs and coolers, someone made reservations at a local pizza place just down the road.  Since Aunt EM was done with her baby shower and also needed to eat, we circled back to the hotel and picked her up before heading to Lou Malnati's.  While we drove to Lou's, she filled us in on all the poop and scoop about the blood and fire alarms.  

Turns out there had been a wedding at the hotel Friday night, and two of the guests overindulged in adult beverages and then got into some fisticuffs involving a broken bottle and a gash in someone's arm.  Said gashed person freaked out (on the 14th floor, for some reason) and went tearing down the stairwell splattering blood all over the place for three flights before deciding that he really needed medical attention and figured that pulling the fire alarm would bring help immediately.  Why calling 9-1-1 wouldn't work or wasn't thought of, I'm not sure, but there you go.  

All 25 of us trooped into Lou's and were thankful to plunk our butts on something other than a boat bench.  I passed on ordering pizza--I can't be disloyal to Mr. Pizza North--and ordered chicken fettucine alfredo instead.  I must say, it was the best CFA I've had!  Some folks enjoyed an adult beverage or two but since I was driving in an unfamiliar town, I stuck to the ever dependable Diet Pepsi.  

We were back in the hotel room while it was still light out with Jane working on embroidered note cards, Aunt EM telling us about the baby shower, and I worked on an afghan.  Aunt EM brought back the games that they had played at the shower.  There was the usual word scramble and such, but then there was an emoji game that was supposed to indicate the title of a nursery rhyme.  

Jane was looking them over and clicking them off like no one's business.  Then she paused, clucked her tongue, and said "I'm not sure what burger, barn, chicken, cow is supposed to be."  Aunt EM burst out laughing and said it wasn't a burger, but she wasn't going to say WHAT it was because it was so obvious.  Jane decided it was a good time for a potty break, so I asked if I could see the emoji list.  I found the one that had stumped her...and also burst out laughing.  

It wasn't a burger at all.  It was an old guy with glasses and a fringe of hair.  Memo to me:  when traveling with Jane and Aunt EM, bring t he thicker Poise pads so when I laugh hard enough to pee my pants, I don't actually pee my pants.  So the emoji thing was Old McDonald (burger-looking old guy) had a farm (barn) with a cluck and a moo.  

There was another one that I thought was the emoji for "hang ten" and then "spank" (an open hand), and then a baby.  I didn't think that was very nice at all...hang, spank baby.  Maybe this wasn't a baby shower; maybe this was a bridal shower with an S&M theme.  

Nope, what I thought was the hang ten emoji was the rock emoji; you know a raised hand with the thumb, index, and pinky fingers extended.  What I thought was a spank was just a bye-bye wave.  So Rock, Bye, Baby....Rockabye Baby.  Well, that devolved quickly, didn't it?

There was more hilarity and laughter for a couple of hours before we all finally fell asleep.  

Breakfast on Sunday morning was a much more laid back affair with no overnight evacuations or bloodshed.  Always a good thing!  Since we really had no timetable for our return to Minnesota, we lingered over coffee and pancakes for awhile.  I mentioned that it might be fun to stop at this unique little gift shop in Onalaska on the way home, and my peeps were game for that.  When I checked their website, however, I discovered that they were not open on Sundays.  Bummer!  I'd have to come up with a Plan B later.    

Once we got checked out and loaded up the van, we hit a nearby gas station for 5 gallons of $5 gas to get us out of Illinois and into Wisconsin where it was a couple of bucks cheaper per gallon to fill up.  

Once we got onto I-90, I tasked Aunt EM with researching someplace fun to stop on our way home.  I didn't care if it was an indoor thing like a museum, gift shop, antique store or whatever or if it was an outdoor thing like a botanical garden, a zoo, or an interesting park.  Just something fun.  

What she came up with was the National Mustard Museum in Madison.  Perfect!  It sounded just kitschy enough to suit my taste. 

Photo courtesy of the National Mustard Museum

 

I'll stop here and say that what I enjoyed about travelling with Jane and Aunt EM was that we were all comfortable being silent for extended periods of time.  I have been on other road trips where at least one person in the party feels the need to fill every second with conversation...natural or forced...and it gets tiring.  So the quiet times were welcome in my van!  Thanks, gals!

Anyhoo, we found the National Mustard Museum in a lovely little neighborhood section of Madison on Hubbard Avenue.  It was just a tiny storefront in the corner of an old building, but it was LOADED with all things mustard.  Of course there was the novelty merchandising stuff right inside the door...coffee mugs, T-shirts, shot glasses, etc.  

Then it was on to the main event.  I'm going to say there must have been five THOUSAND choices of mustard from all points on the globe.  I picked up some horseradish and honey mustard for Captain and some cherry BBQ sauce for myself.  We haven't tried the mustard yet, but we had the BBQ sauce last night on the grilled chicken and it was amaze balls!  Chunks of real cherries in it....yummy!

From the Mustard Museum we sauntered 100 feet down the block to the local diner, known for pies.  In fact, their catering slogan is "If you don't eat your pie, you can't have green beans."  Catchy and clever, I was impressed.  My go-to pie place is Betty's Pies in Two Harbors, and I can't tell you if the Hubbard Avenue Diner pies were better or not because the chicken Caesar salad I had was huge and I was too full for pie!

Between Madison and our last pit stop at the Visitor Center on the west side of LaCrosse, I saw a sign for Circus World and mentioned that it sounded like a fun place.  Thus, the next road trip plans were hatched!!  

After leaving the LaCrosse Visitor Center, wouldn't you know it, the minute I merged onto I-90 in crazy rushing traffic...my phone range.  Aunt EM saw that it was Captain and kindly answered it for me.  From what I could hear of the conversation, this threw Captain for a loop-di-loop!  He just wanted to know how soon I would be home.

Awww...he missed me!    

I dropped Jane and Aunt EM off at Jane's house, hugged all around, and hit the road for home.  

I spent the 30-minute drive home contemplating how much difference good travel buddies make on a road trip, and I have to say, Jane and Aunt EM are welcome on my travels any time!  

Respecting Veterans: The Next Generation

 

Saturday was the annual placing of the flags on the veterans' graves at Saint Michaels Catholic Cemetery.  I took over this task when Dorothy Bloom was no longer able to do so.  I have enjoyed it immensely for many years, and when Cubby was old enough to walk, I started taking her with me.  

The first year she went, she was mostly interested in the dandelions that were popping up and not really much help.  The next year she could say 'Merica and jab the flag into the air.  At that stage, she talked nonstop but no one could really understand what she was saying except for about every tenth word.  When I stopped to say hi to Captain's dad at his grave, Cubby watched intently and then stood there "speaking" to him, and she ended with a loud and proud 'Merica....Amen!

Last year when I took her, she wanted to know the stories on the headstones.  When we found some that were Irish immigrants, we had a whole discussion about why people came here from someplace else.  She got a short--very short--history lesson the Great Potato Famine of Ireland that year.  When we came to headstones that were for babies, her big brown eyes would tear up and she'd say "Gramma, that's so sad."  Yes, baby girl, that is sad.  

So this year when we got there, before we got out of the car, Cubby asked why we put flags out.  So this year she got a lesson about respect and gratitude for those who served whether in peace time or in conflict.  I think she understood it.

This was one conflict I had with my mom.  Dad was in the army in the mid to late 50s.  He didn't see combat, but he damaged his hearing beyond repair firing Howitzer cannons.  Even so, Mom would insist that Dad was not a veteran because he didn't see combat.  So I had to add a blurb to my history lesson with Cubby that veterans didn't HAVE to have been in a war to be respected; they just had to have served.  I'm not sure she understood that, and I guess if she doesn't understand war, I'm okay with that right now.  

The other mission I had while at the cemetery, beyond putting the flags up, was to get the name, birth date, and death date of the veteran whose headstone makes me so sad because it seems lonely and neglected.  

There was moss growing over the name engraved on the small limestone headstone, but there was a larger, newer family monument next to it that clearly showed the last name to be Melian, immigrants from County Armagh, Ireland.  

I was excited to go home and start a genealogical search for this family so I could...I don't know what, but I was going to search.  

I found the headstone on FindAGrave.com.  His name was Michael Melian, and he had been a private in the Civil War with Company G of the 14th Vermont Infantry.  He was born in 1833 in Armagh, Ireland, and died in rural Pine Island in 1875.  So he made it through the Civil War intact.  

I would be very interested to know how he went from fighting with a Vermont company of soldiers and then ending up in rural Pine Island, Minnesota, ten years later.  

I tried to track him back in Ireland to see if I could unearth any other relatives who immigrated that might have information on any of the genealogical sites I frequent, but no; nothing.  I couldn't even find his name or his wife's name--Sarah Melian--on any ship's passenger list when searching the National Archives online catalog.  They had to have come on a ship if they came from Ireland, but I haven't found a record of it yet.  

However, in further searching, I discovered that Michael and Sarah had one daughter, Anna, born in 1871, who married a John Fitzgerald, and  they had three children.  

Agnes Margaret Melian was born in 1895, married Frank Lemmon Graham and passed away in 1981 without any children.

Inez Mary Melian was born in 1898 but only lived a year.  To quote Cubby, that's so sad.

Edward Michael Melian was born in 1904, was married, and went on to have a distinguished medical career before passing away in 1983 without any children, although his obituary did mention two nieces.  However, I'm guessing those were from his wife's side of the family.  

Now I know why this particular headstone is lonely and neglected.  There are no surviving heirs to take care of it.  I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.  

I do know that it makes me want to take flowers to Michael and Sarah's graves just so someone pays their respects.

Call me weird.

Legends, Lore, and Laughs

 

Since I have run out of things to tease Captain about and I am spending so much time down the rabbit hole of genealogy, I decided to just drag y’all along with me.  You’re welcome!
 
Last Sunday, Captain and I drove down to Wabasha to visit my Uncle Jerry and Aunt Linda.  Jerry is the youngest of the five Brehmer siblings, and now the only one left.  So he is now my treasure trove of family secrets, lore, and misdeeds!  And boy did I learn a whole bunch of new stuff! 
 
Like for instance, the farm where I grew up was the home farm of my dad’s mother, Clara Francis Benike Brehmer.  Her brother, Alex Benike, lived on the adjacent quarter section.  When great-grampa Benike decided to retire and sell the home farm, Alex—who always acted like he was better than the rest of his siblings, according to Jerry—wanted the home place but waited too long to make an offer.  Grampa Albert and Gramma Clara Brehmer were able to purchase it instead.  Albert did not have the financing lined up yet when he made the offer to the realtor, so the realtor offered to finance it for him. 
 
When I was talking to Jerry, I learned that a story that I had heard multiple times as a child was actually false.  I had always heard that Grampa Albert never wanted to be a farmer; he wanted to be an electrician.  However—as the story was told to me—his mother was afraid of electricity as it was so new at the time and forbid him to do that and made him farm instead. 
 
Jerry cleared that up for me and said that his dad never wanted to do anything BUT farm (kind of like my dad), and it was Albert’s brother, Ruben, who was the electrician.  In fact, it was Ruben who wired the milk house for Albert and Clara after they purchased the farm. 
 
I remember Uncle Rube coming out to the farm when I was a kid and giving us candy bars from the vending company that he worked for when they were “out of date” but still tasted good.  I also remember him rabbit and squirrel hunting in the woods behind our house. 
 
I asked Jerry how Albert and Clara met.  This is one of those questions that fascinates me now that I never thought to ask when Dad was still alive.  Apparently, Albert worked for a neighboring farm of Clara’s family and they would see each other across the field and such.  One thing and another….and we have a family tree!

Photo courtesy of: 
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fnews.amomama.com

 
Linda told a story about when she worked at the Kahler Hotel and they still had elevator operators at that time.  She got in the elevator to go to her office, and Roy Rogers was standing there in the corner!  Then this elderly gentleman got on using his walker and, thinking that Roy Rogers was the elevator operator said, “Sixth floor please!” 
 
Pets were another good avenue of conversation from Jerry.  He told me about a dog that Dad had named Skipper.  She always slept in Dad’s bed, under the covers, down by his feet.  Like most female dogs of that era, she ended up with child.  One morning, Dad woke up and Skipper wasn’t under the covers by his feet…because she was in his closet in a box of clothes waiting for mending having her puppies! 
 
For some reason, goats are part of the Brehmer family lore.  For those who are not in the know, please refer to my blog post about The Great Goat Float Incident.  Another goat of famous family lore is the one that my dad’s Uncle Emil and Aunt Esther had on their farm.  One day when Emil was away, Esther looked out the window and saw the goat pulling her clean laundry off the line and eating it.  Well, let me tell you, Esther was having none of that!  She got the shotgun out and ended the goat.  Problem solved! 
 
Finally, Jerry gave me the names of the kids in a school class picture of my dad’s circa 1945 from the one-room country school house they went to. 

 
Back row (left to right):  Sylvia Steiger, Virginia Robinson, Miss Dodge (teacher), ?? Southwick, Gwen Domke, Sylvia Syngfiel
Middle row (left to right):  Marvin Brehemr, Marvin Fellows, Herbert Brehmer, David Domke, ?Ken Benike,
Front row (left to right):  Sharon Hart, Joyce Benike, Janet Domke, Shirley Brehmer, Deanna Wolfgram, Elizabeth Domke, Jeanette Steiger.
 
Stay tuned for further family history stories!