“Change of Plans”

My great-grandson will be finishing up his residency soon. He is an Internal Medicine specialist. He has been away from his family and working hard for seven long years. In this great-grandmother’s opinion, the hospital where he accepts a position will be “darn lucky” to have him!
Years ago when our children and even grandchildren, were grown up, his generous mother trusted us to take him on vacation with us for several summers.

I’m remembering many years ago watching this great-grandson and a new friend building a sandcastle on the beach. After a while, the girl asked, “Are you his grandparents?”
“No,” I replied. “ We’re his great-grandparents.”
“Whoa” she said, “Well, isn’t anyone else here with you all?”
“No, he’s just here with us.” I answered.
“Whoa”
That had been my reaction exactly back then when someone in our family asked our nine- year- old great-grandson if he wanted to go with my husband and I on our annual trip to California. His parents were expecting a new baby and I confess it took a while for the idea to grow on me, then I got busy and changed hotel and plane reservations to include a great-grandchild.
His Daddy delivered the youngster on our doorstep the evening before our flight. My husband tried to lift his backpack. He couldn’t. “What on earth do you have in here?”
“Some trail mix, an electronic fishing game, a gum making kit, three shell reference books, five story books, cookies (all melted together) and my world map.”
The trail mix, one shell book, and the world map were allowed to stay.
At Laguna Beach he played in the surf with a little boy from Russia. We had a world geography lesson back in the room where his great-grandfather helped him locate Russia on the world map. We were used to hearing different dialects spoken on the boardwalk, but our great-grandson was fascinated with the many languages he heard. One evening he saw a large group of women wearing beautiful long dresses with scarves covering their hair and part of their face. He asked their guide about them and learned they were from Jordan; and were the wives of a Sultan. When we got back to the hotel that evening, out came the map again.

He persuaded us to try different ethnic restaurants that we had always passed by. He was willing to order and finish exotic new dishes. We found we all enjoyed the variety. Looking at familiar sights through the fresh eyes of a nine year old brought exhilarating sparkle to our yearly trip. We didn’t have our yearly romantic get-away, but we had lots of fun.
We explored the tide pools in early light of dawn. We learned to chase the surf and quickly gather shells before another wave came crashing in. Our paddle ball skills were honed to perfection. Luckily, I only had to explain once that each person washed the sand out of his own swimsuit and hung it out to dry. Best of all, we had someone always willing to go after ice!
The trail mix in his backpack came in handy when our return flight waited in line on the tarmac at the Newport airport for two hours and we missed lunch.
On the trip home I knew we had passed a kind of milestone when my great-grandson turned to me and asked, “Grandma, could we go to the Grand Canyon next July?”
“Well, maybe so. Haven’t you been there?”
“No, then we could take the trip.”
“What trip is that, Honey?”
“You know, the mule ride to the bottom.”
Lucky for me his family went on vacation the next summer.

NOTE: Maybe he can take that mule trip down the canyon trail with his little daughter someday!

Full of Easter
By
Gerry Niskern
Easter is next week and everyone will be recording the events with their cell phones; memories saved for anytime they want them.
I have a basket full of memories of Easter as a kid, but most weren’t recorded in photos because cameras and film development was too expensive. My mother started a roll at Christmas, took a little at Easter and maybe finished it to be dropped at the drugstore after a birthday party. So, special memories you just learned to keep in your head and close to your heart.
When I was just past two my uncle had a Candy Store. He sold chances to win a large stuffed rabbit at Easter time. I don’t know if it was just a coincidence, but my mom won that rabbit for me. It was taller than I was. Mr. Rabbit stood upright with orange and green stripped trousers, a green tuxedo coat and very long ears. The rabbit got dirty very quickly in that little coal mining town with me playing with him all the time. One day I looked up and saw him hanging on the clothes line by his ears. Mom had washed him! I was heartbroken because I thought she was hurting him and she couldn’t convince me otherwise.
My dad had serious surgery that year and everyone who came to visit brought him one of those big decorated chocolate covered Easter eggs. Mom always said that every time they went to have one they found a tiny tooth mark where a bite had been taken out of each end of every one! I think I took “the fifth”. I don’t recall that memory.
Up until I was nine I had to wear brown hi top corrective shoes. I hated those shoes. One Easter memory that I fondly remember is when my dad said, “Hey, while we are waiting for everyone to get ready for church lets play a game of checkers. Get the board.” I reached up high on the mantle and resting on top of the board was a pair of brown and white low cut saddle shoes, for me! My very first pair of low cut shoes like everyone else was wearing and that made my Easter!
When my kids were growing up their grandma and grandpa colored dozens of eggs and left early to hide them out in the Carefree area among the boulders. When the kids and their cousins arrived there was a wild Easter Egg hunt. Everyone was fine every year until they noticed Grandma taking the youngest toddler that year and showing him where the eggs were. “ No fair,” they complained. “Grandma is showing him where the eggs are”. Of course she was. She was the Grandma!
So, do you have any memories in your Easter basket that are not recorded in photos and are yours and yours alone?

Be Nice
By
Gerry Niskern
“Be nice!” my mother admonished me when I was growing up, every time I complained about an elderly, crabby neighbor. “But what if they are not nice to me?” I complained. “That doesn’t matter. Old people have a hard life. Always be good to them!”
Those words of my mothers are beginning to come back to me like “bread cast upon the waters.” Due to a balance problem, I’ve started using a cane once in a while when I’m going to an unfamiliar walking area. And I don’t know why but I’m constantly amazed at the kindness of people.
I’ll be slowly making my way up to the door of a building and realize someone is standing there holding the door for me with a warm smile. Or I’ll go to pull out a shopping cart at a store and someone goes ahead and offers me one. Those sweet gestures catch me by surprise and that unexpected kindness is a ray of warmth that touches everyone.
Much has been written about the rude, inconsiderate people in the public these days. I’ve been pretty vocal myself. I hate the sense of disconnect in today’s world where most don’t feel the need to know their neighbors or even speak to another person in a waiting area. I think we can all agree that technology has definitely changed our lives. Companionship comes from all our electronic devices now.
So, this cane that I use for balance has taught me that there are indeed a lot of caring people in our world. Their small gestures of compassion are happening everyday.
You know, I don’t even mind the occasional “triage” consultation that happens in parking lots when someone stops me and says, “Oh, is it your back? Or your foot?” And then proceeds to tell me of their current physical problem. I learn about a great cream for sore joints or best orthopedic doctor in town while cars are zipping around us.
It has renewed my faith in humanity and I’m reminded that “kindness is a gift that keeps on giving.”
I think many mothers in years past must have had the same mantra that mine did!

I Never Looked Back
By
Gerry Niskern
(authors note: Our doctor used to say that measles are “in the air” in the spring.I’m reminded of one springtime our family had.)
When my daughter Kathy started kindergarten I envisioned her bringing home lots of interesting things to show me and her little brothers. I was happy for her. It was going to be a great year.
Well, She brought things home all right. The first thing was Chicken Pox. She gave it to her little three year old brother Mark. Three weeks later the baby broke out. Kathy and Matthew, the baby, only had a few pox, but Mark, the three year old, was totally covered. He became so sick with a high fever that we rushed him to St. Joes emergency one night and the ER doctor said “ when kids get this covered they have as many inside as outside!” Baby aspirin and trips to the doctor became our new lifestyle.
Next Kathy came home with Rubella, the light measles. The brothers caught it several days apart. Just as the first child was feeling better, the second one would come down. And so it went, week after week.
Later around Christmas time we took time off from our schedule of having all the childhood diseases to fit in the Asian Flu. In l957 the Asian flu emerged, triggering a pandemic. The whole family had that; me and Ken too. By that time I hadn’t slept for months, at least it seemed that way. Their daddy was trying to help, but still had to get to work every day.
Everybody, baby included, finished up with a case of strep throat in time to celebrate Easter. We had the usual Easter egg hunt at the crack of dawn in our yard to see what the Bunny had brought, then church, and afterward a visit to one set of grandparents for lunch. Of course, later we were expected for the rest of the day at the other grandparents.
I had developed at touch of Bronchitis and suddenly that holiday evening I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I started to panic and hyperventilate and managed to partially paralyze myself. Ken rushed me down to Good Sam and they called our family doctor who had been our constant companion thru that winter; so wouldn’t he want to join us on Easter too?
The nurses got me calmed down and when the doctor arrived I kept saying over and over to him, “tell them what’s been happening”.
He took one look at me and said “ Get her a private room.” Then he turned to Ken and said,
“She’s staying here for a while and getting some rest. Don’t let anyone know she is here, except her mother.”
I stayed five days in a blissful blanket of quiet and did nothing but sleep and breathe in the healing mist from a huge vaporizer . When Dr. Craig came to sign me out I remember him muttering to himself a he filled out the chart, “Lets see. How can I word this so the guys in the ivory tower will cover it?”
When my frazzled young husband came to take me home that morning he said, laughing, “ I’ve got to tell you this. When I was trying to talk to Kathy and Mark about you, and explaining that they should try to not aggravate you, Mark said, “But daddy, she’s the mom and if we want to aggravate her, we can aggravate her.”
I got home just in time for Kathy’s next big surprise. I noticed her jawline looking strange. As time went by I realized she was swelling up with the mumps. And of course, right on schedule, a week or so later Mark started swelling and then Matthew the baby. More sleepless nights with high fevers and lots of baby aspirin all around.
Bit the fevers weren’t going down. Guess what. The hard red measles had joined the mix. More days and nights of very sick kids.
Then one day as I was giving my very busy mother a “triage” report I mentioned that everyone’s fever was gone and they all seemed okay; just a little funny looking with swollen, rash covered faces.
I received a surprise call from Mom the next morning, a Friday. “Pack a suitcase. I’m coming over this afternoon and when Ken gets home you two take off and don’t come back till Sunday evening. The kids will be fine with me”.
When she arrived I “hit the door running” and never looked back.

My first Drivers License
By
Gerry Niskern

I just took my car to emission testing the other day and it reminded me of the time I got my driver’s license, years ago.

“I’m not having another baby until I learn how to drive” I declared as I heaved my whale sized body out of the car, slammed the door and lumbered up the walk to the door of my Ob’s office. I hated having to wait for someone to take me places. I wanted my own wheels!

The following summer, while my young husband, Ken, was at Arizona National Guard camp I stayed with my folks. Every evening mom took care of my baby, while my dad took up the role of my driving instructor. We went to a huge insurance company’s parking lot and I drove, round and round and round. I shifted from first, to second, and over to third, over and over and over.

“Press the gas gently, and slowly let off the clutch”, my dad patiently repeated the words, again and again. His old green Chevy truck bucked and choked, lurching forward by frantic leaps and bounds, like a rodeo bronco I eventually got the hang of it and just as I was congratulating my self, thinking, “There’s nothing to this driving business” my dad commented, “Now tomorrow, we start practicing parallel parking.”

“You mean, between two cars?” I gasped. “Yes.” He laughed. “That’s what you usually park between. You won’t get your drivers license unless you can parallel park to the officer’s satisfaction.” “Well, there goes my dream of my own wheels.” I sighed.

After a couple more weeks of practicing parallel parking, Ken drove me over to the MVD, and waited in our brand new black Ford two door sports sedan. I was petrified. I knew I couldn’t do it. I took the written test with no mistakes. But I couldn’t feel happy because I was instructed to report to the driving test officer.

My feet were dragging with dread when I started out the door. Then I saw a crowd around our car. A distraught young woman was crying as an officer was writing out her first driving ticket! It seems she had started to pull out with the officer for her driving test and had managed to take off our brand new left rear fender. Seeing the distress all around, the officer said that after we exchanged insurance information I was free to go. He initialed my test form and said “It’s okay, young lady. You don’t have to take the driving test. You passed!”

“Do You Have Any Green Stamps?”
By
Gerry Niskern

Every day we all read about the turmoil at Disney World. According to a recent column by Ross Douthat in the New York times, the Magic Kingdom of family fun is still a great experience for the family. Granted it has become much more expensive and the lines are longer every year. When I hear once again about Florida’s battle with Walt’s World I’m reminded of our trips to Disneyland in California years ago. I’m glad we had the experience of enjoying Walt Disney’s” dream” with our kids and later on, grandkids. Please enjoy an essay I wrote about our trips.

The other day someone asked, “Do you remember S & H green stamps? Of course, I remember.
The first thing that comes to mind is Disneyland, but I’ll get back to that later.
Way back when I was a kid, and the earth was still cooling, my mother saved green stamps. The Sperry and Hutchinson company gave out the green stamps in partnerships with many supermarkets, gas stations and department stores.
The stamps were rewarded with the purchase from a business and based on the dollar amount of the purchase. Some stores enticed people in with double stamp days. The stamps were pasted into collector books that could be redeemed for valuable items from their catalogue or an S & H store.
One summer our family of five and my sisters family of five went to the Magic Kingdom entirely free. It took 39 books of stamps for each of our families to exchange for certificates that entitled each one a deluxe 15 ride package. We had saved for months and our mother chipped in to help out. We were still there at midnight for the fireworks when Tinkerbell flew across the sky and tripped the display. Our kids, all grade school age, had the time of their lives.
Of course, I have to admit, my first trip to Disneyland was sans kids. We hired a sitter and headed to San Diego one summer. “Let’s drive up to Orange County and look around,” my scheming husband suggested one morning. When we reached Anaheim he said, “Oh, look over there, at that little mountain. Do you think that is the Matterhorn at Disneyland?” When I responded, well, maybe it is!
Then as he intended all along, we spent a day at the Magic Kingdom. It was great.
The next summer, we took our two, five and seven year old. They loved it, but they made sure that every place we ate they told the waitress that they were going to Disneyland and with sad faces added, “They went last year without us!”
Of course, now you have to take out a small loan to make the trip to Walt’s World. There was a lot of satisfaction back when a whole family could have the adventure of a lifetime free; all on S & H Green Stamps.

“Voices”

By

Gerry Niskern

What do you think about the new friends we all have acquired in the past few years? You know the ones. They’re voices. That’s all, just firm voices.
At first it was a little disconcerting having someone I can’t see and didn’t know giving me authoritative orders. I remember years ago when we were waiting in the car for a real estate lady who ran into her bank for a quick minute. Suddenly, a woman said real loud, “Your engine is running and your seat belt is not fastened!” I don’t know who went straight up first, my spouse or me. That was just the beginning the invasion of the voices.
Now days at the airport, when we are finally relaxing a little on the moving sidewalk, in one of many repetitious commands a voice instructs us over and over to “stand to the right and walk on the left, please”.
Then, there is our new robotic buddy at the supermarket. Actually, I like him. I get finished checking out faster and he’s never sniffing from a fresh cold. He invites me to “press start here, scan the first item and put it in the bag.”Of course, he does get a little cranky sometimes. If I have a large item, like a twelve pack of cola, and decide to put it directly into the cart, he repeats “put the item in the bag, put the item in the bag! PUT THE ITEM IN THE BAG!!! By this time the courtesy clerk is scurrying over to see just how retarded I really am and the customers behind me are snickering.
Of course, his R2D2 chum at the gas pump doesn’t talk to me at all. He doesn’t have to, as long as I need him more than he needs me. I quietly slip him that little credit card and he delivers. Gas. Nothing else. No oil checks clean windshield or “have a nice day”.
On the other hand, there’s another voice we can be sure we’ll never hear. When we call the doctor’s office and get their menu with more choices than you care to use, there’s one option we don’t have to worry about receiving. Press # 5 and you can speak to the doctor himself. Forget that one!
The voice in the box at the fast food drive- in offers a different challenge. Now, we know there is actually a live person on the other end of this form of communication. The problem is, they can never quite hear you and you sure can’t understand them. Come to think of it, maybe they could get lessons on how to speak clearly and distinctly from Mr. Robot.
Today’s children are different. They’re accustomed to taking orders from the voices in their toys. One little toddler I know pushes her pink fire engine along and is delighted when a voice tells her “Look both ways when you cross the street…In case of emergency, call 911….or Don’t talk to strangers!” The older kids take their instructions from their video game voice of authority before beginning a game. Maybe that’s better than the arguments we used to have as kids on the rules for Monopoly. .
As time goes on, we’ll all continue to be introduced to more and more new voices in our lives
I have just one request. Could somebody please put a microchip in the take- home box in the restaurants? He could yell, ”Hey lady, you’re forgetting your doggie bag!”

“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!

Time Travelers
By
Gerry Niskern
I’m sorry I haven’t posted anything new lately on this blog. I’ve been neglecting this site because I’ve been spending a lot of time helping writers become time travelers. That’s what people who write a memoir are called: Time Traveler.
Anyone who has ever attempted to write a memoir of any kind must dig into the past, with all its pain and joy. It is usually a perilous journey to do that personal excavating and discover an abundance, beautiful and heartbreaking both, that you didn’t even suspect was lying beneath the surface.
People often ask “ Why would anyone be interested in my life?” I’ll tell you why; because everyone is unique. There is not now or ever will be a person exactly like you and your story. Your family is like no other. There are undiscovered stories in all of us. Telling those stories are how we learn our true self.
It’s your chance to set the record straight. It is your chance to tell some family history from your point of view.
As a memoirist you will be getting a better understanding of how you came to be who you are today. The people in my creative writing workshop are completing a collection of personal essays that they may use in the final version of their memoir.
I’ve worked with this small, but delightful, group of writers who have been striving to be more creative in the way they tell their stories; in ways that will hold future readers interest. I’ve written along with them on weekly projects and have discovered that I only have so many “words” to give in a week.
When and how they decide to share their stories with the world is up to them. Some will self- publish, some will have print small booklets just for the family and some will finish, put their work away to be discovered by another person some day, but they will have recorded their history that is theirs and theirs alone.
Permit me to refer to the quote I used at the beginning of my own memoir,
The word that unites all families is, “Remember!”

This popped up on Facebook Share again today, so I thought some of my new readers might enjoy it.

“The Stir Stick”

By

Gerry Niskern

There used to be a running joke in our family about who will inherit the “stir stick”. Which offspring will be deemed worthy of the old pine stick that my grandmother, my dad’s mother, used to stir her clothes in the big tubs hold the laundry rinse water? That piece of pine was bleached white and worn smooth as satin as she stirred the clothes round and round the old tubs till they were rinsed clean. She raised six children all alone by taking in boarders and laundry, with the help of that one small stir stick.
My own mother inherited the stick from her mother-in-law and used it many years. However, somewhere along the way the stick was retired, pushed to the back of a cupboard. That probably happened when she purchased her first automatic washer.
She didn’t get a dryer though. Mom insisted on having the fresh breath of wind and sun on her towels and sheets. Actually, she didn’t take quickly to any new gadgets for the home. I wonder what she would have thought about the new cooking parties that the young homemakers are giving?
I can imagine Mom’s running commentary on the latest cooking tools.
As the hostess carefully demonstrates how the new colanders can be used to drain not only pasta, but also canned peaches; I can just hear Mom saying, “What’s wrong with using the can lid like always?”
The innovative measuring cups have a cup on either end, so if one’s messy, you can use the other end. Mom’s comment would be “Ever hear of measuring the dry first, then the wet?”
The new baking stones are touted to bake every cookie perfectly even. “But what if you have one kid like his cookies real soft, while another wants his dark and crisp. And then there’s dad who likes the date bars cut from the edge of the pan because they’re crunchier?”
The exhibition of the special onion chopper and handy tomato slicer would have brought the retort, “use a knife.” When the hostess explains that the new garlic press can be used in a real emergency to crush bullion cubs. Mom would say, “Make your own chicken broth, it’s better for you.”
Don’t even mention the improved spatulas that sell for thirteen dollars! “Nonsense. Cake batter tastes just as good licked off a ninety-eight cent spoon.”
Something tells me those women, like Mom, of years ago who melted down their soap pieces on Sunday evening to get ready for Monday’s wash and saved their potato water to make gravy, wouldn’t be good ones to invite to today’s cooking parties.
But actually, if you look closely, some of the old customs are new again. Nostalgia is back in a big way. Young couples are snapping up the old Victorian homes. They’re hanging lace curtains and searching for handmade quilts. Spinning wheels and butter churns are sought after items to place in the entry hall and Grandpa’s wicker rocking chair is sought for the front porch.
The latest trend is to knit your own afghans; some women’s magazines are now carrying complete instructions. The sewing pattern industry is reporting a big comeback as stay- at- home Mom’s are buying sewing machines.
Cooking is back. On kitchen stoves the size of small Volkswagens, today’s homemakers are simmering Thai stews and soups with Eastern-European flavors as they celebrate their ethnic backgrounds.
Everyone is embracing the “rootedness” of the home. They’re very keen on traditions. Parents desire a way of life they can pass on to their children.
The other day I saw some antique, hand decorated wash tubs hanging on a back patio. Since I’ve been hanging on to that old piece of bleached pine, I’ve been wondering, is it possible that we might see the return of the “stir stick?”
Nah.