“Songs My Mother Sang to Me”

By

Gerry Niskern

Today’s young mothers sing to their baby while it is still in the womb as a way of bonding with the infant. I  have a feeling my mother was way ahead of her time. My mother sang to me, when I toddled after her down the rows of bean stalks as she picked a “mess” for dinner.

She sang while she peddled her treadle sewing machine mending our dresses. The songs I remember best were the ones she sang in the car. When my dad’s flailing hand was trying to connect in the back seat with an unruly child, Mom would quivkly say, “Let’s all sing.”

When we tired of harmonizing, we begged her to sing our favorite,. “Sing Redwing” I would plead. She always started… “There once was an Indian maid, a shy little village….as the song of unrequited love spilled from my mother’s lips, we were spellbound.

My grandson’s wife always sang lullabies to her first baby, a baby boy. He listens spellbound, brown eyes solemn and wide.

He had books that played tunes when you open them or touch a spot on the page.

His pushcart played melodies as he trudged behind it. The videos he watched were full of music. Nothing comforted him, hushed him or soothed like his mother’s voice when she started singing softly to him.

Mothers are remembered for many things; their cooking, wiping away tears and cuddling. But the one thing my great-grandson and I both can say is  “My mother sang to me”.

“Mother’s Day” Series # 1

By

Gerry Niskern

Moms and food go together. With my mother, it was food and family stories, always with a moral.

One of my first memories is of my mother standing in our kitchen making cottage cheese. I can’t tell you how she did it, but I know there was a cloth bag involved. Anyway, it was the best cottage cheese you’ve ever tasted.

That brings us to buttermilk; cold, tangy, buttermilk. I was allowed to help pump the churn plunger up and down. (A process that would have gone more smoothly without my help, I’m sure.)  After that she used wooden paddles to collect and shape the mounds of butter from the bottom.

All these dairy products were the result of mom insisting that we have Daisy, a young cow.   Mom suspected that she was part deer because she kept leaping the barbed wire fences to chase the bulls.  Mom hiked across the steep hillsides to bring her back and soothed her scratched udder with balm but the milking process was hectic.

Dad worked in town, but mom loved living in the country. She planted large gardens, plowed and hoed them herself and canned vegetables and fruit every summer. She made deep fried fritters with chunks of peaches, apricots and plums.

I’m always amused about the ongoing debate of today’s young mothers. Should they work or be a stay-at home mother? With mom, there was no question. She was a working mom; in the barn, kitchen and the garden.

But along with the chores was a running monologue of her opinions on democracy, morals and life in general.

In the l930’s, during the dark days of the depression, one or two men came to our back door every day. They would ask if they could get a drink from our pump in the yard. Then they would as if they could do some work for a bite to eat. Mom never let anyone go away hungry. Occasionally, I was trusted to carry a battered tin pie pan heaped with steaming eggs and generous slices of homemade bread and butter out to the destitute man waiting on the porch. Mom always followed with a fresh pot of coffee.

When my adult kids are reminiscing about grandma’s cooking, each remembers a favorite dish. Was the Sunday roast beef, with mashed potatoes and gravy, the “to die for” meatloat, or the fresh green beans, seasoned with bacon that was the best.

I’m here to tell them that the chicken and homemade noodles win, hands down. The egg noodles were rolled out on Saturday, cut into thin strips and laid on wax paper to dry overnight and dropped into the golden broth on Sunday before she finished frying the chicken.

On second thought, I forgot to mention Halupkis. Every European country seemed to have their version of cabbage rolls. Mom’s recipe came down from her mother. Each roll, (leaf of cooked cabbage), contained a delicious mixture of ground beef, pork and rice. They were cooked in a large pot in brown gravy with bits of tomato floating.

I should mention the creamy dill flavored potato soup. Of course, my husband votes for her pies.  She baked two every Saturday up until the day she left us.

In her kitchen, while cooking, Mom taught me many things about honesty, hard work and putting family first.

I wonder if many of today’s young mothers who occasionally announce that they are “cooking tonight” will be remembered so well?

“Let’s all go to the Prom”

By

Gerry Niskern

Among the paintings by Norman Rockwell is one titled “ After the Prom”. In the image a teenage couple is seated at the soda fountain of a drugstore. The girl is dressed in a waltz length pink gown with cap sleeves.  Her date is holding her purse and pink sweater while she adjusts her corsage. The soda jerk waits to take their order. A trip to the corner drugstore for a soda after the prom…imagine that!

I know some girls in Paradise Valley who are getting ready for their prom. The girls have been shopping for the right gown for weeks.  Strapless is a must. They plan to spend around $400 for their dresses, but with shoes, purse, makeup and hair the evening will run closer to $600. Their dates will be in a rented tux, of course. But that’s just the beginning. He’ll be footing the bill for the dance, dinner at an upscale restaurant first and hopefully sharing a limousine with a group. Typically, they will go on to another party after the prom.

On the other hand, our Junior-Senior prom at Phoenix Union High School was held in the gymnasium. My date picked me up in his low riding black Chevy coupe. The cool look was achieved by loading the trunk with sand bags.  A trip to Coney Island down on Central Ave for a chilidog or a ride out to the Ice Cream Polar Bar on North Central for a Zombie were a couple of the after dance options.

A friend of mine from Minnesota reminisced,  “My prom in the 40’s was held in May when the weather was good. My date picked me up in an Essex for the $6 dinner dance. My gardenia corsage was $3.  All the juniors and seniors went whether they had a date or not. The gowns were long and the boy’s suits were dark.”

We both share the experience of raising children of the 60’s who spurned the idea of anything traditional. They wore their hair long and their army fatigues baggy. Needless to say, since they worked hard at being anti-establishment, going to a prom was out of the question. By the time our free spirits had offspring of their own, the prom was popular again but prices had changed. Dress prices had quadrupled and tuxedos and limousines were a must.

Actually proms started changing in the late fifty’s. Another friend who went to Glendale Union High School remembers paying around $45 for her gown and of course, shoes dyed to match.  “My boyfriend showed up in a white tuxedo he had rented for $20. He brought white orchids.  The prom was a dinner dance at the Bali Hi Hotel in Phoenix.  After the dance everyone raced home and changed clothes. Then we drove to up to Yarnell, and had a sunrise breakfast at the old “Ranch House Café. Don’t ask me why!” she laughed.

. If you didn’t have a date,back then, you didn’t go.

It seems we’ve come full circle; because now groups go to the prom without  dates. Sounds good to me!

My great-grandaughter is going to the prom this year. She will be the first girl in our family to go to the Prom in a long time.  She had the trendy typical formal invitation complete with balloons and flowers. I don’t know where it will be, but I know she will have a wonderful time and some great memories.

My date for that prom in April, 1950 always said  the most expensive part of prom night was the price of the ticket he received for having straight pipes on his Chevy coupe that could be heard several blocks away. He thought that maybe the limousines aren’t such a bad idea.

  An Arizona family Easter

By

Gerry Niskern

When our kids and their cousins were growing up here in the valley, they thought the Easter Bunny hid his eggs out on the desert. Grandpa usually scouted out a pristine site shaded by Palo Verde and Mesquite trees the week before.  The dozens of eggs that Grandma dyed were hidden before our extended family and grandkids arrived. The eggs snuggled among the gold desert poppies and blue lupine.

The tradition of dyeing eggs in bright colors and giving them to family and friends goes back centuries. The Egyptians and Persians practiced this tradition long before Christ was born In the Middle Ages it was forbidden to eat eggs during the 40 days of Lent. However, the hens kept laying and out of the resulting glut, the Easter egg tradition was born.

Different cultures have developed their own unique ways of decorating their Easter eggs. Our family always typically started out with wax crayons, delicate designs to follow and great expectations. After a few eggs are colored and the first container of colored dye hit the kitchen floor; the job became a little rushed and it was all downhill from there.

Actually, it didn’t matter, because the eggs my kids valued most were the ones they found on the desert that the giant Arizona Jackrabbit left among the desert flowers. .

For years we gathered North of Thunderbird Road in the area where the Moon Valley Country Club now stands. After the egg hunt, the older kids rode ride a small go-cart and the dads fired off toy rockets for the kids to chase and try to be first to find them.

When that area started to fill in with houses, we met for our picnic on the beautiful desert land just East of Scottsdale Road and Bell, that is of course where the North valley residents shop at The Great Indoors and surrounding stores.

Finally, we moved our picnic place among the smooth, round rocks of the Carefree area, right where the Boulders Resort sprawls over the desert.  Their Easter baskets full of chocolate ducks and jelly beans were forgotten as they scrambled over the round rocks hunting for the mysterious eggs hidden among the boulders.

If it was windy, they flew kits. Led by Grandma, arroyos were explored and unique rocks scrutinized for signs of gold. A feast of ham, potato salad and Grandma’s cream pies topped off the day.

So tell the kids to put on their running shoes and practice their wind sprints. The furry rabbit with the huge ears is coming. Remind the Grandpas it’s not fair to walk ahead of the pack showing the baby where the Easter eggs are hidden.

Just a word of caution, leave real early. You’ll have to drive outside of Phoenix a long, long way to find a pristine desert site for your Easter picnic.

No more Ice Cream
 

Gerry Niskern

The first drops of rain started as the moving man dropped the ramp from the truck.  He shouted up the hill, “ We’ll have to carry your furniture up the driveway and stairs.”

High above our challenge sat facing us. The square two-story house on a steep hill had paint chipped from the stucco and sad, empty terraces down to the street where bougainvillea, lantana and Hibiscus would soon be growing.

Later, as the mover place the last item in the kitchen ( the old ice cream freezer) and waited for his check, he announced, “If you folks decide to move again, in another three months, just give us about two weeks notice…so we’ll have time to get out of town!” His company had moved us three months earlier from our home of many years where we had a panoramic view of the entire valley.

We had always lived in the foothills enjoying the grand show everyday of pink and silver dawns over Piestawa Peak, majestic thunderheads marching across turquoise skies during the summer monsoons, and dusty mauve and gold sunsets.

Now, after a short time as “flatlanders”, we had purchased another fixer-upper with a fantastic view of the city. This vagabond life wasn’t how I envisioned spending the retirement years; however, since I had a husband whose favorite television shows were “This Old House” and  “The Woodwright’s shop.” He had plans, enormous plans; pushing out walls, moving bathrooms and adding a large balconey.

Along with the challenge of remodeling various houses over the years, came my nagging thoughts of “Who’s home is this?” Who planted this beautiful, neglected Peace rose?   What little boy watched his dad put up the measuring chart inside this closet in another house, marking the child at three years, three and a half years, four years. Where was that little boy now?

Where was this home’s previous owner? She was a religious woman obviously, her prayer cards were scattered in many drawers. This homemaker was from the “old school.”   She had double laundry tubs, but no hookup for a dryer. The sturdy steel clothesline covered the entire patio, and it was so low you were in danger of decapitating yourself every time you ventured outside.  I guessed she must have been all of 4’5”.

As usual neighbors from both directions greeted us with statements like “We have a key to your house. We always keep it in case you go on vacation: or, don’t you just love the tile in the kitchen? We helped them choose the color.” I wanted to shout, “Not really, this is my house now!”

Later, when the rain stopped and everything was stacked in, we bid our mover’s goodbye, with promises we would positively not be calling them again. The pungent smell of the desert foothills was refreshing with the mingling aromas of the wet mesquite, creosote and sage.

“Bring the lounge chairs up to the balcony,” I called to my husband. “I’ll see if I can find the box with the margarita glasses.”  We stretched out our sore muscles and watched with never ending fascination as the glow of sunset changed to darkness and a black onyx valley below filled with thousands of twinkling lights like precious stones spread out for our pleasure.

Suddenly, we awakened to an incessant ringing of a phone somewhere in the distance. Where was the phone? Maybe it was in the kitchen. Where was the kitchen? As my sore, aching muscles finally reached the phone a tiny, excited voice said, “Hi, Grandma.  Are you home? We’re coming over to see your house.”

“Yes,” I replied, “Yes, honey, I’m home.”

I sold my home this month. I’ve always known that I would have to move to a one story place someday, but I didn’t realize how hard it would be. Over the years when a friend would remark that they were “breaking up housekeeping” and downsizing I didn’t stop to think how difficult it must be for them. I don’t even remember saying, “Oh, that must be hard for you.” Well, know I know. I just took the last load to Saint Vincent de Paul and on top of the stack was the “center” of all the family parties, the  old ice cream freezer.

“April Fool”

By

Gerry Niskern

April Fool!  I remember when Krispy Kreme came to the Valley of the Sun.  Everyone in the valley had been hearing about the unique Krispy Kreme Donuts that were coming to our area. According to the hype these famous donuts were like nothing you’ve ever tasted before.  There were stories in the news media about the opening of the first donut shop in the East Valley. We were promised those of us in the west and north would get ours soon.

Our envy grew as we heard the Krispy Kremes described as delicious, delectable and delightful. Friends from the favored side of town advised, “You have to taste them, you won’t believe how luscious they are.”

Well, our turn came. Krispy Kreme opened up at 83^rd Avenue and Bell road and also at Christown.  While my husband and I stood in line in the gleaming white tile shop, watching the donuts being made, a young woman came down the line offering hot donuts fresh from the fryer. We took a bite and my husband said, “They ARE good.  They’re exactly like the ones we used to buy when we were kids down on 15^th Ave., only they were bigger.  Remember that place just north of Van Buren.  What was the name of those donuts?”

The donut shop, from our childhood, was right on our way home from a long day of swimming at University Park. The smell in the air got to you long before you reached 15^th Ave. The hot, sweet aroma of those sinkers as they fried was more than any hungry kid could resist. It was actually a wholesale bakery for many restaurants around the valley, but if you knocked on their door, they would sell you a few fantastic donuts.

We took some Krispy Kremes by my daughter’s house. She said “Mom, they’re really good. But, what’s the big deal? They’re exactly like the ones the Donut Man used to sell around our neighborhood when we were kids, only the Donut Man’s were bigger.  He had a van like an ice cream man and we begged you to buy some each time. Don’t you remember the name?”

My son-in-law chimed in with the pronouncement; “You guys never had a really good donut unless you had one like I used to sell in west Phoenix when I was a kid. We kids sold them by the dozen. They came in white boxes with cellophane on the top. Believe me, that was a donut that melted in your mouth. The only problem was, it wasn’t too profitable for me because I had a dozen eaten before I covered the first block of customers. I wish I could recall the name of those donuts.”

We made one last stop with the Krispy Kremes at our Grandson’s house. His 21-month-old son enjoyed his donut with sprinkles along with his morning tippee cup of milk. He listened solemnly to our debate of the best donuts we each had eaten in our lifetime. Then he gathered up his milk cup, slipped quietly out of his chair and plucked the last donut out of the box.

I can hear him saying to his grandchildren seventy years from now. “You call these donuts. We had real donuts when I was a kid that were delicious. They were larger too.  My dad used to take me to this donut place; he carried me along the window so I could watch donuts by the hundreds rolling along on the conveyer belts and plopping  into the hot oil. I was fascinated as mysterious arms flipped them over and the other side turned golden brown. A lady came down the line and gave me a warm one in a napkin while we waited.  Now, that was a donut!  What the Sam Hill was the name of that place?”

A couple of weeks ago I was reading an article titled “A guide to weird words your teen uses.” The author Jennifer Jolly, of USA Today, said translating the latest “slanguage” in 2017 is not easy.

For example, did you know that “”fams” refers to their tight inner circle of friends? And “thirsty” might describe a friends eager desire for a romance with another person. And this is interesting. “Throwing Shade” is dissing another individual.

The natural evolution of language, plus the by product of text messaging and social media have had an effect on teen’s speech, but they have always had their own special kind of communication.

Try to think back to some of the words that you routinely used as a teen, and then get a load of the words from my teen years!

“Boy howdy! I’m getting this one,” my best friend used to declare when she liked the sounds of a great new song filling the record booth at the downtown music store. I usually responded urgently. “We need to take this stack back to the clerk. Boy howdy! They get mad if you take too long in here.”  Boy howdy was what every kid from middle to high school here in Phoenix used to say to emphasize a point. You never hear anyone say that anymore. I wonder if it was a local or national teenage trend.  I realized kids had quit saying that sometime between my school days and my daughters.

You see, years later, I was shocked at hearing, “Those are bitch’n shoes” coming out of my sweet, innocent daughter’s mouth. Her dad and I were horrified. Did we just hear what we thought we heard? Our teenage daughter was casually uttering a forbidden word with her friends. She was told to stop saying bitch’n immediately. “But all my friends say that” she had replied. We promptly decided she had to get a new friends. .

Then, just the other day imagine my surprise when I saw my great-granddaughter look at her friend’s new jacket and declare, “That’s sick.”  Now, I’ve learned to wait awhile to learn what a teen’s favorite word actually means. Turn’s out sick is a complimentary term for something you really like. You know, as in, “Boy howdy, that’s bitch’n!

REUNIONS

By

Gerry Niskern

Is your high school graduation class having a reunion this spring?  After all, this is the season.   Everywhere committees have been busy tracking down fellow classmates, working the phones and mailing out invitations for the big bash.

When your summons arrives you are usually informed that they want a short bio and pictures. PICTURES! Calling Dr. Atkins in the Zone on South Beach!

Then there’s the question of what do you wear to a reunion party? Anything you want. At our big reunion I saw casual slacks and Hawaiian shirts, suits, shorts, white gauze pajamas with sandals; and that was just on the men! The women wore sexy “little black” dresses, long cotton patio dresses, suits and “Sunday go to meetin’ ” outfits.

It seemed to be confession time for the women talking to my resident historian that evening.  “I was in love with you all through high school” and “You didn’t know it, but I had a crush on you”, were a few of the remarks I heard. “Those tight jeans and that black leather jacket!” laughed one. I was beginning to think I was attending that reunion with “The Fonz”.

If you haven’t attended your 30^th, 40^th or 50^th reunion yet, just wait. They’re the best. The barriers are down; broken by years of living.  Who cares in which side of the valley you used to live? Does anyone really remember whether you drove a “hot” car, rode the bus or rode a bike to school? It was great to see the two guys who had competed fiercely for top grades laughing and reminiscing together.

As for the short bio that our invitation requested, let’s just say our class had all been busy. We’d had marriages, divorces, more marriages, children, weddings, and grandchildren. Most of the men had chosen professions and then changed careers and changed again. Many of the women who started out as “stay at home moms” discovered later it was great to pursue a profession.

Some of our classmates served in the Korean War. Some didn’t return.  A few had sons who served in Vietnam. And now there were grandsons deployed to the Middle East.

We were in on the beginning of the war on drugs.  We ran straight into the sexual revolution, marijuana, the Pill and The Rolling Stones.

While we were busy experiencing life, the super stores replaced the corner grocery. The old drugstore with the soda fountain and home delivery disappeared too.

The women’s hair styles changed from the pageboy to the beehive and then to curly and back to straight again.   Skirts have gone up and down several times and the guy’s tight Levis are now relaxed fit. The jean jackets we wore are being worn by our grandchildren, but they are not $3.00 anymore.

We saw the Berlin Wall fall and the first man walk on the moon while we tried to see the world too.

We went from our first cars to station wagons, vans, SUVs, and back to “cool” cars.  We’ve embraced credit cards, ATMs, cell phones and computers. We’re working out, watching our cholesterol and have given up cigarettes.

So, If your reunion invitation arrives this spring, be sure to go. Life has a way of leveling the playing field.  I promise you, out on the dance floor you’ll see that the Campus Queen and the football hero are candidates for Extreme Makeover; and surprise, the class “dork” has become quite a dancer.

So go, and have a ball!

What’s Your Valentine Song?

By

Gerry Niskern

When I was a little girl back in West Virginia my sister and I used to lie in bed at night and listen to WWVA. That was the radio station that played hillbilly music and featured the champion yodelers. I tried my best to imitate them.

Later, when we moved to Arizona and lived a block from the State Capitol building, I used to sneak up the winding stairs of the rotunda to the third level. There, with the help of its wonderful echo, I continued practicing my yodeling until I was chased out. That always happened pretty quickly.

Later on, in Junior Hi, my boyfriend (and future husband) had the only portable record player that he brought to all the neighborhood dances, along with his collection of the latest records. We could have danced all night to Perry Como crooning a song called, “Till the End of Time”.

Of course, a lot of the girls in High School were swooning to any song Sinatra sang. For some reason, I passed on Frankie and leaned towards who I really loved the most, an Irish Singer, Dennis Day. I still love anything Irish, especially “Danny Boy” and “I’ll take you Home Again, Kathleen”. I took a lot of kidding for that.

But as a newlyweds, we discovered Elvis, and of course, our favorite song, “Love Me Tender.” We saw him once in Las Vegas and he had the world’s sweetest voice.

Later on,   when our kids were in high school and the phone rang I could always hear them explaining quickly, “Oh, no. I wasn’t listening to THAT! That’s my mom’s record”. Anything coming from their bedrooms was either The Rolling Stones or The Grateful Dead. You see, by then, I had become hooked on Country Western and loved hearing Roy Clark singing “Come Live with me” or Marty Robbins with “Come Back to Me”.  Of course, I loved anything by John Denver; especially “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” My kids were thoroughly embarrassed by them all.

But the funny thing was, I really enjoyed some of their Beatle songs too; especially “Yesterday” and “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”. And I loved Janis Joplin singing “Bobby McGee” and still have it in my CD player in the car.

Somewhere, over time, my sweetheart turned his attention to classical music and we attended a lot of symphony concerts, especially featuring violists.

There were many singers and songs over the years that my Valentine and I both loved. We had a running debate over who had the best voice, Elvis (my choice) or Dean Martin (his choice). And it would be hard to choose one, but we totally agreed on Roger Whitaker singing “The Farewell Song”, day or night.

“An Arizona Valentine”

By

Gerry Niskern

This Valentine’s Day, February 14, is Arizona’s Inauguration Day.

Do you ever wonder what your life would have been like if you hadn’t ended up in Arizona? I do. I’ll always be thankful that my parents brought my sister and me here in the summer of `42.

I would have grown up in a limited little coal mining town back East with black soot on everything. I remember going to Grandma’s wearing a Sunday school dress and being admonished, “Don’t touch anything, and don’t lean either!”

My ten-year-old horizon was expanded as we drove across the U. S. in dad’s l940 Plymouth. He always picked up soldiers and sailors hitch-hiking to get home on leave during the war. Riding in the back seat with my sister and me hanging on their every word, they told their stories of the war and also of the home states they were trying to get back to for a quick visit. We were getting a liberal education.

Driving down from Globe, Miami and Superior on route 60, we were all a little shaken up. Was Phoenix going to be like these dusty little towns? Instead, Phoenix was bright and clean.  My dad said “it was like someone washed your eyeballs!” Best of all, there was grass and palm trees everywhere.

My education was just beginning. Every kid in school was from somewhere else as people poured into the valley for war work and airmen from nearby bases filled the streets.  My best friend was from California and another was from Mexico. The lady down the street was from England and the next door neighbor was from Nova Scotia. A Pima Indian family lived across the street. The dad worked for the railroad and the mother had graduated from an Eastern college. Their son was in the Arizona Bushmasters fighting in the Pacific. We were fascinated by their stories.

My parents embraced Arizona. My dad carpooled to save gas ration stamps to take us to every remote part of our beautiful new state.  We traveled north to the Canyon, Painted Desert and South to Nogales, and everywhere in between.

We were there for the first day of trout fishing on Oak Creek in the spring and back again for the apple harvest in the fall. My dad hiked every trail of South Mountains.

I enjoyed diving into the cool water of University pool, carrying home armloads of books from the Carnegie Library on W. Washington and canoeing with my sister on Encanto Lagoon.

My memories of this sweetheart state are endless and there is a story in every one