SPOON LICK’N GOOD!

By

Gerry Niskern

When you were a kid, did you call dibs on the spoon or the bowl when your mother was finishing up a sweet dessert? Nothing tastes as good as the tasty drops clinging to the beaters too.

My kids always loved that privilege, but so did the big kid in the house, their Dad. When they were all grown up and gone, and I was making something sweet, I could always count on him calling out, “anything to lick yet?”

The licking was good when Christmas timed rolled around and my mother started on her annual candy making. We watched as she cooked a boiling clear fondant to the right point, poured it onto a large platter and then beat it to a creamy,  white constancy. Sometimes she stuffed the fondant into large dates. But best was when she worked chopped Black walnuts into the mass and then made a long log and sliced it in pieces. Out of this world good!

But that was not all of her repertoire. She cooked chocolate fudge before the days of short cuts and her heavenly divinity was good licking too.

Of course, I made all of those for years, but one year I tried a new recipe out of the newspaper. It became a family favorite. Pralines. Not the traditional Southern kind that you buy in New Orleans, made with brown sugar and cream. No. My  new experiment was made with pecans,  buttermilk and white sugar. They are tricky because you have to cook the mixture to the “perfect” temperature, let it stand for just the right amount of minutes and then beat it hard and smooth. If you have judged everything right, you then quickly drop spoonfulls out on a flat surface. If you can start picking them up immediately. Success! And the best part for the pan lickers was than the mixture set up so quickly that there was a lot left in the pan.

Old habits are hard to break. I still find myself thinking, when I’ve finished with the beaters, “don’t rinse them. Someone will want to lick them!”

Have you licked any good bowls or spoons lately?

“All Second Generations”

By

Gerry Niskern

Does the topic of illegal immigration come up often in your conversations with friends? Everyone has an opinion. Build a higher wall. Pick them all up and deport them. Take back our jobs. Never mind that the majority of those jobs are work that on one else will do.

I have a young friend who constantly worried about illegal immigration too, because you see, she was brought to this country by her parents when she was five. She is a young mother and we often compare notes about her boys and my grand children. When hers wanted to Spiderman for Halloween, so did ours. When hers wanted a special video for Christmas, so did ours!

When her oldest started school he bragged that he was “the smartest kid in the class.” That was because he spoke Spanish and perfect English. He interpreted for the teacher. Her kids also told her about what they had learned about Thanksgiving and that they wanted her to cook a turkey like their friends were having.

She asked me to write out exactly what to buy and how to cook a Thanksgiving dinner. And at Christmas time she wanted make traditional Christmas cookies for her boys. I gave her my recipe and my cookie cutters too.

Later on, when I asked how her holidays had been, she laughed, telling me about how her whole family of brothers and sisters and their kids go to her mother’s tiny house on Christmas Eve and spend the night. And just as all off spring do, they love to tease their mother about how hard she was on them when they were growing up.

Turns out, her father had passed away and her mother worked two jobs every day. The older kids had to see to it that everyone was up on time. They had to be washed, fed and ready for school. She told us, “ My mother’s strict rule was that the house and yard had to be clean. She went straight from her morning job to her second job on the city bus.When she came home at night she expected chores and homework to be done and dinner started.

Over the years my young friend has continued on a tough work schedule waitressing and cleaning houses. She and her husband were eventually able to buy their own home. Her two sons are both in college and doing well.

Just like every Second Generation they have assimilated and become woven into the fabric of American life, just as all our grand and great-grandparents did decades ago.

If she were stopped for a traffic violation, could she be deported? Would the family be torn apart? Could you send them with no regrets?

I couldn’t.

“Give Them the Love of Reading “

By

Gerry Niskern

When our family moved to Phoenix in the summer of l942, I was overjoyed to learn that we were only about ten blocks from the Phoenix Carnegie Library on West Washington. An easy walk for a kid back then, even loaded down with a staggering stack of books. And of course, among those volumes was “The Little House in the Big Woods”, the first of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series.

Wilder’s first book was published in l942 and lucky for me, the Phoenix library carried it; and  all the rest of the mesmerizing stories of Wilder’s childhood as they were published.

Millions of young readers were enthralled with the true stories of the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains and the harshest experiences of homesteading families. She wrote about Indian attacks on the settlers, wolves stalking their cabin and swarms of Locasts that devoured their crops many times.

However, throughout all the Little House series, she told of her family’s love and devotion to each other. Her father’s violin music that entertained and entwined their family ties.

A new biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder was published this year called “Prairie Fires.” The author Caroline Fraser brings to life the unknown details of Wilder’s extraordinary life.

I knew My daughter had read the books, but I was surprised to learn that one of her brothers was familiar with the “Little House” sagas also. When I was describing the new Wilder bio, “Prairie Fires”, he said “my teacher read them to us in the second grade. I loved them.” He could have told me back then, but I guess seven year old boys don’t do that!

When my great-granddaughter was expected, my baby shower gift was a little boxed set of “Little House” books. I don’t know if she ever read them. I hope so.

My great-great-granddaughter is going on three and loves her books. I think she will be an early reader and guess what she will  receive for Christmas that year?

“THANKSGIVING ROULETTE”

By

Gerry Niskern

Do you have your genealogy research all done in time for your family’s Thanksgiving gathering? Due to Twenty-three and Me, Ancestory and a few more websites, everyone now has a chance to learn about their immigrant ancestors.

Of course, some went into the search with the expectation of find a distant Prussian General, or at least an English duke in the family tree! Most find out they are descendants of hard working immigrants who poured into America in the l800’s and early l900s. Those early relatives learned about Thanksgiving  Day gradually, as well as about the laws, taxes and social mores.

My own grandfather, from Austria, was recruited to come work in the coal mines in West Virginia. My mother often told of when she started to first grade grandpa had her sit with him at the kitchen table and help him learn  to  read the newspaper. He was very anxious to learn about our democracy and how the government worked.

Grandpa had served the required seven years in the army of Emperor Franz Joseph before he was allowed to come to the United States. My mother often told of how, as he learned to read English, he marveled at our freedoms allowed in our constitution. He reminded her siblings to be thankful they were growing up in a country where there was no King or Dictator.

And of course, Thanksgiving was celebrated, but my grandmother refused to buy a turkey when she had lots of chickens, and besides, she always declared, “You don’t just give thanks on one day, You are supposed to give thanks every day!”

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO AN ENCHANTED ISLAND?

By

Gerry Niskern

I visit an enchanted island every once in a while on a long Sunday afternoon.

When you get out of your car in the Encanto Park lot you don’t need  directions. The Merry-go-round  music beckons you in the right direction, over the bridge.

As I walk across the bridge, kids of all ages pass me,  headed for the fun rides. If they are celebrating their birthday on the island in one of the shady party areas, their parents are pulling wagons loaded with drinks, presents and a birthday cake. Last time, one of the fathers was even pulling a wagon containing a TV. I guess he didn’t want to  miss the big game either!

The train that circles the park toots to let everyone know to watch out at the crossing at the entrance. The merry-go-round is first, but there are airplanes to fly. (some poor kids ride in a boring circle because no one tells them to raise up on the control and they will fly!)

All kinds of cars to drive come next and of course, the fire engine  is the one claimed first. There is a Tilt-a-whirl and a boat ride,  but the most popular without a doubt is the Dragon Roller Coaster.

A munchkin rider has to measure a certain height on the operator’s chart or they can’t ride the Dragon. I hear lots of worried kids asking, “Do you think I can make it this time?”I  remember taking  two great-grandkids years ago, and while I went to the  restroom, their grandpa “talked” them on to the Dragon. I was appalled when I caught up to see the five year swirling  up and down and  his two year old sister riding beside him! And as tradition goes, both hands in the air too!

When I look up I’m always startled to see the high rise buildings between the trees. They weren’t there years ago when I was a kid and we went to the park to feed the ducks and swans and rent canoes to paddle around the waterways.

As I sit on a bench “people watching”, or I guess I should really say “kid watching” I am entertained by all sizes and ages. If you love kids and don’t have any in your family right now, enjoy the ones on The Enchanted Island. It’s a nice way to spend a long Sunday afternoon.

nksgiving Memories”

Thanksgiving is coming and I, like many of my friends around the valley, am remembering past Thanksgivings.

Tension best describes my first memories of Thanksgiving.

My very nervous mother had just cooked her first Turkey dinner. We were standing with our faces pressed against the cold glass of the dining room window straining to see through the snowy veil of a West Virginia blizzard.  Dad had invited his out-of-state boss to share our meal and the guy had  brought his rifle to “get in a little hunting”with my dad, before dinner.

As mom wrung her apron over and over into a tiny knot, she kept muttering, ”If he’s lost in that snow storm, I’m going to kill him!”

# one  son recalled the great Thanksgivings when our extended family always packed their turkey and all the trimmings and headed for a desert picnic outside Phoenix. The kids rode go-carts, flew kites and launched rockets. Grandpa set up tables and the tailgates of pickups served as buffet sideboards. Grandma brought the turkey warm in the roaster, with warm potatoes and gravy in large thermos jugs. He remembers waiting over an hour one year for cousins to arrive with the silverware. Needless to say, Grandma said she would give them another assignment the next year!

A friend told me about the Oklahoma farm Thanksgivings of her childhood.  Sometimes turkey, but often a whole, crackling pig was roasted. They had cornbread dressing, cranberries and sweet potatoes with marshmallows. Cherry, pumpkin and apple pie with a scoop of cream whipped fresh that day with a hand turned beater. There was always a dark chocolate and a huge angel food cake.  “One aunt was the angel food champion. My aunts whispered suspicions that she used more egg whites instead of the standard 12 in her cake.”

The men ate first because there wasn’t enough room for everybody to sit down together. When they were finished and went outside to smoke and “chew the fat”, the women and children ate.   “The best part of the day was playing with my cousins. Hide and Seek in the barn was my favorite, but then the older kids would organize a Crack the Whip game and since I was the littlest they made me be on the tail end. That took the fun right out of Thanksgiving!”

Another friend described Thanksgiving dinner at an aunt’s Maryland farm. The table was set with scalloped edged china covered in large blue flowers and gleaming silverware with a rose pattern.  The prisms hanging from the crystal candelabra cast soft rainbows on the diners. Of course, that was the adult table. She remembers yearning to graduate to the big table and listen to the uncles’ stories and take part in the adult conversation. On one of those Thanksgivings, the turkey had to be carved in the kitchen instead of at the table.  The guests didn’t know that a couple of the family dogs had already helped themselves to one whole side of breast!

My resident historian said that his first memory of Thanksgiving was during WWII. A fourth grade classmate invited him to share a lonely dinner with him and his mom. The friend’s dad was on a destroyer somewhere in the Atlantic.

During the war years, my Mother instructed Dad to “go down to the USO and bring home some soldiers to share Thanksgiving dinner with us and the girls.” Much to our disappoinment,  he always  managed to return with older married guys. Mom always said Dad didn’t “fall off the turnip truck yesterday.”

I asked a seven-year-old in the family what he was thankful for at Thanksgiving time.

“That Christmas is coming”

Well, there’s that too.

“HAVE YOU BOUGHT YOUR CANDY YET?”

By

Gerry Niskern

Why don’t skeletons go trick or treating?

Times getting  short. Only a few more days until the witches, princesses or monsters come shouting at your door. “Trick or Treat, Trick or treat!”. You better be ready.

Years ago, in our first new home, I kept reminding my husband to pick up  some candy. Halloween was coming. Of course, I didn’t have to remind him because, for days, he had heard our two-year old practicing her new words. “Trick or Treat”. She had it down pat.She was going as a Chinese girl.  She had a pair of blue silk Chinese pajamas and I had fashioned her a coolie hat.

When the big day arrived, Daddy came home with boxes of regular sized candy bars. Boxes of them! “I’m giving out the kind of loot that I would have liked when  was a kid!” he declared.

He stayed home with baby brother and Miss Hong Kong and I took off. There was just one problem. At the first home and every one thereafter, she stonily held  out her bag and gave the poor neighbors the dirtiest look  she could muster, refusing to say a word. She came home with quite a little sack full anyway.

We came home to find out that her daddy had not given out a single candy bar. Nary a Goblin had knocked on our front door. “I would hear kids coming and then they would sort of fade away.” He said. We finally decided to check  the front door. We had both forgotten to take down the “Shhhh…baby sleeping” sign that I had put out that afternoon.

So get out and get that candy and be sure to check your front door!

By the way, the reason Skeletons don’t go Trick or Treating is they don’t have any body to go with!

Halloween, let’s give it back!

By

Gerry Niskern

Halloween used to be just for kids.  I’m talking about the age-old holiday when the  kids dressed up like witches or monsters and visited the neighbor’s houses shouting, “Trick or Treat”.

Planning began weeks in advance, giving everyone time to think up the best character. That way they could always change their mind several times, driving their mother crazy, especially the ones who were sewing the costumes.

Make no mistake about it. This is one holiday the kids own. On October 31, when it starts to get dark and they have eaten the required bite of dinner, it’s trick-or-treat time. Beautiful Princesses and heroic Batmen hit the door running, with mom or dad trotting to keep up with the charge down the street.

Actually, I’m a little more concerned each year. According to the costume rental businesses, the demand for adult disguises is through the roof. Restaurants and caterers brag that their orders for adult Halloween parties are increasing rapidly. That’s all fine and dandy, but remember this special night belongs to the munchkins.

Halloween night, dating back to when it officially started around A. D. 830 when Pope Gregory IV proclaimed November 1 All Saints’ Day, also known as Allhallows, has by tradition been a kids night for fun.

The school may have an official parade through the other grades to show off costumes, but that does not a Halloween make! Yes, it has gotten a lot more dangerous in recent years. Sure we all have to be more diligent about where we take the munchkins in their quest for goodies. Also, older brothers and sisters have to be given strict guidelines for their adventures.

Don’t pass up the wonderful chance that helps the little ones develop their creativity and imagination too. Those childhood years pass too quickly, eight or ten at the most. When they put on those costumes and are transformed into Spiderman or Barbie, make no mistake about it, they really become Spiderman and Barbie and deserve an evening of  “let’s pretend.”

So how about it, before the adults take over the holiday, let’s give Halloween back to the kids?

When Cousins Collide!

Some of you might remember the post that I wrote about meeting my great-great-grandaughter for the first time about a year ago. At that time I mentioned her unique approach to everything. I got to see her again last Sunday and she was more innovative and fun than ever. She doesn’t like to wear pant and shirts anymore, only ballerina dresses. When she is being dressed in the morning she keeps getting out a dress, hoping to replace the play clothes. When one isn’t accepted, she keeps bringing out another and another, thinking one will be okay. This little blond haired, brown eyed fashionista is persistent. If it sounds like I’m bragging….I am. I’m a great-great, those are the rules!

She just turned two a couple of months ago and is sporting quite a vocabulary. “Hi Grandma” she called as I walked in her grandmother’s house. Most of her talking was reserved for her younger cousin, Oliver. There was a reason for this, you see. ,

Iris plays with the babies at the Day Care she attends, but because cousin Oliver was a preemie and is small for his 18 months, she calls him baby and doesn’t realize he is his own man. He had brought all of his video games and she was staking a claim to them . I haven’t had so much fun in a long time; watching the crying battles that ensued. When she would try to take one that he was playing with she found it wasn’t that easy. You see, Oliver uses a wheelchair and has very strong little arms. So when she pulled a game a way, he didn’t let it go. “Done now”, he yelled and she kept saying “no, no baby”, but couldn’t pry his strong little hands loose.

After the battle of the videos, she decided to push him around in his wheelchair. Her ballerina skirt billowed out like a parachute as they made their own NASCAR track, that is, until they hit one wall and then another. He was laughing out loud as they crashed. He didn’t know girl cousins could be such fun. She kept patting him on the head and saying “I love you little baby

When Oliver was put down to crawl, she crawled all over the house with him. But when he crawled over and picked up a video game, the armistice was over!

“Coffee Time Parade” Chapter two

By

Gerry Niskern

As I sit and arrive people arriving at the best coffee gathering place in the valley, I never cease to wonder at the variety.  On any day I might see beautiful young women dressed in the latest swishy dresses or no nonsense suits in five-inch backless heels hurrying to grab a latte on their way to the office. Of course, I  have to laugh at the gals in the “spray-on jeans” and their high boots. Never mind that it’s still close to 100 some days!

Right after them come tired looking men and women, in surgical scrubs, looking for a cup of strong regular.

While exhausted tennis players arrive to enjoy an iced coffee, the morning walkers are ready for iced tea as the refreshing misters keep the 100-degree temperatures bearable.

You’ll see dogs of all breed and sizes in their daily drama of one-upmanship. Some of the large, docile pets would be perfectly happy to play with the smaller canines. However, the mighty midgets feel duty bound to challenge any larger mutt.  Then again, that eternal feud is mild compared to all their mutual hatred for the mailman. The thirsty guy in the unlucky “uniform” is challenged with a chorus of indignant barking.

On Wednesdays there is a few tables shoved together for group meetings. Sometimes it’s the retired crowd trying to make sense of today’s politics.  Or the group is the city detectives having an early breakfast. Then again, it might be a PTA committee planning the next year’s fundraiser.

The “Stay at Home” moms don’t stay home much these days. The mom’s shrieks of laughter blends with their toddlers giggles as the kids chase, but never catch, the pigeons looking for a stray crumb.

Pretty apron clad young women from the nearby hair salon chatter as they hurry by between appointments. They’re anxious to grab a designer coffee, but stop to greet regular customers seated at tables they pass.

Two fellows in business suits carry their steaming coffee and plates of gooey, pecan rolls search for an empty table. No doubt they are fugitives from the cholesterol police. I suspect the wives at home thought the heart healthy oatmeal that they prepared for breakfast would hold them until their “ sworn salad lunch.”

The kids on the skate boards always zoo right up to the entrance, tripping the automatic door opener, jumps off and catch the board as theystride through, all in one spectacular motion.

The other day when I came out to reclaim my table, an Asian family were seated nearby. The mother jumped up to hand me my book and apologize profusely. Her toddler had knocked it on the ground. The baby stood there with bowed head and when his mother was finished explaining, he looked up at me with the sweetest smile I  have ever seen and offered me his slice of pizza. I just wanted to take him home!

Where can you watch that unique passing parade? Why, at your favorite morning coffee place.  Note: Cast subject to change without notice.