Fleas that neither bite nor jump—but are apt to take over your house

While sisters take a boat ride, a storm forms

           Think of “On Top of Old Smoky” and sing along: “There’s fleas in my cupboard/ and fleas in the drawer. / There’s fleas in the bathroom/ a dozen or more.”

            I could go on and on about all the places in this house where wonderful bargains rest; bargains from various flea markets, antique stores, second-hand and consignment shops. Oh, and thrift stores.

            One year, my sisters and I spent a week headquartered in Horseshoe Bend, and those of us who were not flea marketers became so. Ash Flat, Highland, Hardy, Salem, Mountain Home, Viola, Gepp (pronounced Jeep)—no place that even looked like a resale business escaped our perusal.

            We four eventually honed in on each other’s search/ missions: Bev looked for large art deco vases for silk flower arrangements and hammered-aluminum pieces for her elder daughter who lived out of state. Carolyn searched for Fostoria crystal—American pattern—especially the lid to a mustard jar. She also kept her eyes peeled for bunko gifts.

I looked for frosted glass and Avon Cape Cod pieces to add to my collection. Barb wanted Tom and Jerry sports-motif glasses for her son and cream pitchers for herself. Not just any cream pitchers, mind you, but thick ironstone ones shaped like the one our mother had for as long as we could remember, but which she had already given to her youngest son. (Sons should inherit things, too, even while parents live.)

Each sister also developed a certain style of shopping. Bev walked ahead, eagle-eyeing right and left; Carolyn and Barb took a little more time, and I lagged behind, looking carefully at each object, especially books. It got to be a joke. At one large house crammed with everything a dozen neighbors could have emptied there, the other girls wouldn’t let me go upstairs. “You don’t even want to see it!” they said, guiding me to the register. I held a dirty Hires Root Beer bottle and a frosted glass candlestick.

Another year during a stay in Hot Springs, we began our flea search at Central City and ended up at the Hot Springs Flea Market, where three trips were still not enough to see everything.

So, what fleas are in my cupboard? Two stained-glass-motif drinking glasses, two faceted, frosted-glass mugs, a crystal fruit dish with berry-shaped feet, a Fostoria footed glass—larger than a juice but smaller than a tea; and a frosted-glass candy dish.

Fleas in the drawer include a sterling silver child’s spoon and a William Rogers butter knife and sugar shell.

In the bathroom are pink vases, candleholders, soaps and an old, ivory plate with pink roses.

No, the fleas in my house do not bite or jump. But the items not only bring me pleasure—both for their beauty and for the bargains they represent—but also evoke (elicit) memories of childhood when we girls played “playhouse” for hours with broken, castoff pieces from Grandma’s kitchen and attic.

 And today, alas, it seems time to begin thinning out all those fleas while I can. Or else, when the time comes, my children will have to do it.

Barb and the boat driver taking us to shore quickly 

Elephants, fleas and good memories (with emphasis on the final syllable

Barb, Carolyn, Bev, Pat on one of our annual sisters' trips

               You remember “Golden Girls,” right? And how Sophia often said, “Picture it: Sicily, 1925.” Well, one year--two-ought-ought-three, to be exact—we four Couch sisters, two of whom were 50-something and two who were in our 60s, settled into a time-share condo shared by the out-of-state sister.

                No husbands, brothers, children or grandchildren allowed. Or parents. One husband always got knots in his knickers every year when this trip was planned. “It’s just not right for you to go off without me,” he whined to his wife, but she pulled her five-foot-five frame up to his chin, locked her wide eyes onto his and said, “I’m going!” Sixty-somethings with strong sisterly ties can do this.

                Before the trip, the host sis had sent the rest of us an email: “Let’s do a white elephant exchange. Bring the grossest, most ridiculous, silliest thing you can find. Wrap it in brown paper.”

                When we were ready to exchange, the brown blobs were arranged on the coffee table. The eldest got to go first. That was moi. I selected what turned out to be a nine-inch tall, cone-shaped candle of the art deco style (I suppose), where various brown shades of wax were mixed together, shaped, then while still warm, sliced downward all around the candle. Like fondue pots, this candle had enjoyed limited popularity. Barb said she’d hidden it in the cupboard over her fridge for many years, just waiting for the perfect . . . uh, event.

                Next to draw was the youngest sis, wife of the Pulaski County judge (at that time). She chose my elephant—heavy and round. (Aren’t elephants always heavy and round?) Like a child, I could hardly contain my glee. Her new hobby was flower arranging, and when she peeled the paper back, she found a brown glazed clay pot with an unfinished neck, strings of unglazed clay fired onto the bottom, willy- nilly. I would imagine that art student got an F for his work.

                Let me digress to tell why I had the ugly, deformed piece. While living in Arkadelphia, I tried to walk Feaster Trail daily after taking Billy to school. One spring when the wildflowers were in bloom, I was drawn to the Mill Creek bank on the southwestern edge of Henderson State University’s campus. I noticed what appeared to be an art studio dump—pieces begun but broken, perhaps abandoned after grades were posted. I picked out several things to decorate my own flower garden. They didn’t have to be whole, just interesting. At home, I laid the round pot on its side so it couldn’t catch and hold water. It was truly the grossest elephant I had. We shall see what Sis does with it.

                Barb unwrapped a low-slung rabbit with grapes on its head and ears like Dumbo’s. “A bunko prize,” Teacher-sis explained. It elicited much amusement. Then she had to take the final elephant. From a lunch bag, she drew out a small, pink, unopened square package and held it out for all to see. Such raucous, tears-inducing laughter you’ve never heard from four women who were thankful they’d out-grown the need for that “gross, ridiculous, silly” feminine hygiene product.

                Next time: fleas.

Lest we forget—poetic musings for 9-11

LEST WE FORGET!

              I have no original or meaningful words as a memorial to the 9-11 event except in mine and another’s poems. There are probably no words—except in poetry—to grasp or deal with or meditate on the horrific happening.

From my September 2012 haiku booklet, a lamp to work by, the poems on September 11, 12 and 13 follow: --World Trade Towers/ “attacked … aflame …/ aground” (a quote from the state paper’s editorial on that day)

--medical teams/ volunteers of all colors/ in hospital green (Ibid);

--two days later, / he pulls his “9-11” shirt/ from a jumbled drawer. (Billy)

 My brother in California designed t-shirts for the family memorializing the day. On the front is a photo of the Statue of Liberty and on the back, block letters in a frame say “A Day to Remember, 9 – 11 – 2001”. Billy, age 22 when the poem was written, and I, still wore our shirts and I hung (and hang) the flag each year since. And I’ve already worn my shirt this year.

Searching further, I remembered that a poet friend in southern Missouri wrote a book of elegies called The Silver Cord. I asked via email if he would give me permission to use some of his poems for this column. Dale Ernst of West Plains, formerly of Eureka Springs, was glad to oblige. “That’s exactly what I wrote it for,” he said.

SLIPPING THE STEEL – “Must go, can’t stay the course/ upstream, even if I wanted to. // Slipping the steel. / Slipping the body. // In a flash of shimmering light--/ instant fusion, of this world and that …// then the deep blue, of gone.”

MORE AND MORE – “More and more, it seems/ I am walking through myself--/ a disappearing act, or should I/ say, an ongoing act moving on. //To where I don’t know. // When we wave goodbye, / there is the very strong feeling/ that it could be the last time.”//

ASHES – “Here we all are on this old river bank, / a place you and I walked many times/ on summer days—sometimes talking, / sometimes not—it didn’t really matter, / just being here was enough. // Now I stand here—silver vase in hand-- / with family and friends. // Everyone says their farewells/ in their own way—some with a prayer, / some with a simple goodbye. //

“As I raise the vase and cast your ashes to/ the waters, the wind picks up, as if on cue, / sending them far out over the river. // It may have its way, carrying the remnants of your/ earthly form away, but within, you still abide; / our spirits now dancing on eternal currents—as one.”//

Pat, again: If you would like more poems like this, The Silver Cord by Dale Ernst, can be purchased from the Book Store at thebookpatch.com.

A meditation on living a long time

Living a long time and loving it-Kathy, Roxie, Janis, Bettye

Here is a paragraph I transcribed from Ray Bradbury’s book, Fahrenheit 451, p. 156 – 157:

“Granger stood looking back with Montag. ‘Everyone must leave something behind when he dies, my grandfather said. A child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted. Something your hand touched some way so your soul has somewhere to go when you die, and when people look at that tree or that flower you planted, you’re there. It doesn’t matter what you do, he said, so long as you change something from the way it was before you touched it into something that’s like you after you take your hands away. The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching, he said. The lawn cutter might just as well not have been there at all; the gardener will be there a lifetime.’”

When one reaches 80, one wonders what will be left behind when one moves to that Final Address. The Bradbury paragraph describes it as well—or better--than any I’ve found. I also have heard that as long as anyone remembers you, you live on.

Oh, I know lots of folks 80 or older—and thank goodness, a lot of them are my friends and relatives: Aunt Mary D., Frances, John, Uncle Norval for instance. Jimmy Carter, George H.W. Bush, Dot, Freeda and Gene, Bettye and Betty, Ted, Bill W., Cordell, Nelda, Faye, Pat, Patti, Jean, Arthur, Doris, Joan, Sue, JoAnn, Phil, Birma, Cathy, Sissy, Johnny, Charlie, Holland, Carolann, “Red,” Audrey, Jim, Versie, Anne–– not to mention my own high school classmates, who are now nearly--if not all--80.

But 80 is so young! ––comparatively speaking. I remember back a-ways, reading a book that began—and I paraphrase— ‘She was an old woman of 60’. I was livid. How dare an author make such a statement. How young must the writer have been?

At 60, I was single and raising a 6-year-old grandson. We moved to another county to take a new job, which meant finding a new home, getting belongings trucked down, meeting neighbors, work colleagues, school folks, and those at the courthouse.  It meant locating the post office, the grocery store, the school, the church, the print shop, the gas station, the school-uniform outlet—no activity for an “old 60-year-old,” right? Wrong.

Living to be 80 and older is, as they say, a luxury that a lot of folks don’t and won’t ever enjoy. But of all these people I’ve named, not one of them is sitting on the porch swing or in the rocker feeling sorry for him/ herself. They are all busy—volunteering, care giving, going to church, playing in the bell choir (see above), attending activities at the senior citizens’ center, weed-eating, mowing, walking, serving on committees and boards, making plans to travel, beginning new projects.

And each of us will leave behind “a child or a book or a painting or a house or a wall built or a pair of shoes made. Or a garden planted.” Or a book published. Or a smile given. Or a hug. Or a kiss.

And may we live and thrive—like some in the above list—to 90 and beyond.

c 2016 PL dba lovepat press