Off She Goes
By
Gerry Niskern
August is looming and Grandmas are out shopping in full force. School will be starting soon and “those kids need new clothes”. Some lucky grandkids will love choosing their own new “rags”, especially the girls.
My great-great granddaughter is starting Kindergarten this year and her grandma’s are busy ordering the outfits she has chosen online. Shoes, tights, dresses, coats and even a new backpack are on their way.
Back when I bought her daddy some new outfits for school, around age 7, he thanked me politely. Then he said, “I’m not going to wear them the first couple of weeks. I’ll just wear my regular clothes because I want everybody to know the real me.” We’ll see if the little great-great is as democratic as her daddy was.
Years ago when my first granddaughter started Kinder, she chose a black denim skirt and she was not happy when I wouldn’t buy it. I didn’t think little girls should wear black, but turned out I was wrong. Half the girls in her class were wearing something black that first day. Needless to say she didn’t get her smart fashion sense from me!
When my own daughter started school, I made a trip to Penney’s and bought three new dresses to alternate every other day. And when I started first grade, eons ago, I was well supplied with some hand-me-downs from an older cousin. But I was actually very lucky because her mother always bought her Shirley Temple dresses and they were what every little girl longed for!
School clothes have changed over the years, but there is one thing that hasn’t changed. We, parents, grandparents and everyone want the beginners to have a wonderful experience in the school years. We can’t buy that for them, but can only trust that they are ready to learn and enjoy their school years. My little great-great is self confident and out going, but kind and helpful too.
She’s off to a good start!

“Arizona River Cruise Line”

By

Gerry Niskern

This was from a column of mine in the Arizona Republic a few years ago: Revised

Is your family thinking of taking a cruise this summer? Have you sent for all the brochures and picked out an interesting itinerary? Before you make any hasty decisions, let me suggest you enjoy an Arizona River Cruise.
The residents and visitors of Phoenix have been tubing down the Salt and Verde Rivers for a long, long time. Before all the dams were built, the two rivers flowed wide and full. As soon as there were old patched inner tubes available, there was a way to cool off in the Arizona heat in July. Before Resorts or even RV’s, Arizona families used to spend their vacation camping along the rivers.
Unlike the mandatory fashionable wardrobe for an ocean trip, let me describe the proper attire for a river cruise. No matter which river you choose, you will need a bathing suit, a pair of cut off jeans; (to keep your backside protected from submerged logs and sharp rocks.) You’ll also need some old tennies, sun block, sunglasses, and a hat. The tubes heat up in the Arizona sun, so a towel to drape over the sides is a good idea too.
Typically, when our extended family took our annual cruise on the Verde River every summer, it went something like this.
Grandpa couldn’t swim so he didn’t join floating party. He trucked the inner tubes to the river and met us down stream at the end of the day. Grandma’s Romel style straw hat had a bill. She wore it like the general when she directed the launching of our summer river cruises.
In the middle of July, it wasn’t necessary to be a good swimmer, just a strong walker. You were always glad you had your tennies on when you had to swing your leg down inside the tube and push off against the rocks if you were grounded. In no time at all, you would be bobbing along with the current.
Our kids, along with their cousins, wiggled into their tubes, clomped down the muddy bank and with a whoop and a holler, were on their way. They delighted in the heady freedom of being allowed to go on ahead of the grown-ups.
The water was pure and cold. It felt like melted snow against our hot skin as we floated away, one by one.
We cruised the low, clear river over water sculptured rocks in ever changing moods and colors. As the desert glided by, we passed Mesquite, Palo Verde and an occasional stand of giant Cottonwoods, their green and yellow foliage hanging over deep green pools.
Invariably, as we floated by, we were ambushed by a band of river pirates dropping from the branches above. Waves swamped our river craft and grinning kids who looked familiar popped to the surface. Sooner or later, one of the river pirates asked grandma for a safety pin to hold up his bathing suit; or another needed a Band-Aid. Grandma provided the items without fail from her waterproof plastic purse. You name it, she had it.

We floated on past little hidden pockets of lush vegetation. Blue herons swooped above the trees and settled on their skinny legs in the shallow water. Meanwhile, the strong, sentinel mountains held the brooding July thunderheads at bay.
Later, we sailed into a deep, green pool. Shouts and splashes echoed from the nearby cliffs as kids cannonballed off huge rocks. Tiny rainbows arched through the sprays of water.
One uncle always took along Sparky, their family dog. On one trip, he decided to let the little pug enjoy the river because, according to him, “all dogs know how to swim”. Sparky immediately sank like a rock in twelve feet of water. While his wife screamed, he abandoned ship and dove repeatedly, finally saving the drowning dog. Later, when it was time to drive home, he realized that now, instead of Sparky, his car keys and billfold were at the bottom of the river.
In late afternoon, we rounded a bend and saw the orange sunset reflecting off grandpa’s glasses as he stood waiting at our rendezvous point. The river moved swiftly there, so the men hauled themselves out of their tubes and waded us in.
Soon the smell of hot dogs sizzling from supple sticks filled the air. Damp towels hung like limp capes from kids’ shoulders while we listened to the ripple of the river, chirps of crickets and an occasional owl.
The moon rose cool and bright we reluctantly packed up to go home. We knew we would be back to celebrate another summer on the river that enticed us again and again.
How soon can you pull your wardrobe together for an Arizona River Cruise?

“Cool Truck”

By

Gerry Niskern

Maybe you remember seeing a little blue Ford pickup scurrying from store to store around our valley anytime from the 60’s to the early 80’s. The bed was always stacked eight feet high with plump, handmade evaporative cooler pads. The rumble of the straight six engine bouncing off the pavement could be heard two blocks away.
The kids in our extended family loved riding along with Grandpa on pad deliveries. One of the perks was that Grandpa had the little workhorse so well trained it automatically turned into chosen Dairy Queens along the route.
As they grew older and needed part time summer jobs the grandchildren learned to make the cooler pads. Nothing smells as good as freshly shredded aspen wood as you grab armfuls and spread it evenly into sized trays lined with cheesecloth. You tuck the cloth in and staple it all around the edges. Then you grab the foot long needle threaded with string and take long criss-cross stitch and tied it off with a flourish…two minutes tops. The boys in the family were sure they would get to make deliveries in “the truck” when they got their drivers licenses. Wrong.
When hot, tired customers came into the shop for fresh pads each spring, they were not happy campers. Heaven help the homeowner who asked for supplies for his swamp cooler. My dad gave them all the help he could, but first corrected the errant customer that they were called evaporative, not swamp coolers. He showed them how to scrape the alkali from the louvered panels of the cooler, patch any holes in the bottom pan with a thick black adhesive. Dad patiently instructed all this to newcomers just as he had been helped with his cooler by a neighbor on an August day in l942 when we moved into our first house in the valley.
He sold them a new recirculating pump and clean, plastic arms to insure even distribution of water down through the fresh pads. More likely, he encouraged them to attach a garden hose to the drain on the bottom of the cooler and let the runoff help water the grass.
On one historic hot day in our family in l942, when Dad finished changing the pads in our side draft cooler and cool, refreshing air filled our new home, Mom and we girls decided that maybe we could stay in Arizona, after all.
Lucky are the people who have both evaporative coolers and air conditioners. On warm days from April up to the 4th of July or until the dew point reaches 55, they can enjoy the breeze wafting through doors and windows open to the fresh air, and count on a small electric bill too.
My parents started the Cooler Supply Company in the early 50’s and prided themselves in producing the best cooler pads in the valley in their small manufacturing plant. Their pads cooled a large portion of the population in Phoenix, Glendale and Scottsdale. Dad and the old Econoline pickup with wrap around windows delivered to several school districts that had standing orders each year. Other dealers that waited for the truck’s low rumble were L. L. Smiths in Glendale, Paul’s Hardware in Scottsdale and Mike Barras in Sunnyslope.
The old 64 Ford pickup lived at our house in the early 80’s. As the kids in the family married and bought family cars, we still received a call from time to time, “ Could you bring the truck? We have something big to move” Those with a little more chutzpah say, “I’d like to borrow the Econoline for a while this weekend.” They’re entrusted with the keys along with the warning, “Don’t forget, if you give the truck its head, it will head straight for the nearest Dairy Queen.”

Drones or Rockets?
By
Gerry Niskern
What was the best fireworks display you have seen in your lifetime?
I would have to think a while to choose one in my memory as the best. My earliest recollection of the Fourth of July is of a homemade ice cream fest at our farm back East when I was a toddler. After dark the men shooting off big, beautiful rockets from the top of our hill out over the meadow. It was wet and green in the country side so there was no danger of fire. Someone put a sparker in my hand and I loved it!
Later, growing up in Phoenix, fireworks were against the law for the public, but the city put on a wonderful show on the island in the lagoon at Encanto Park. People relaxed on the grass in the area in front of the Bandshell.
Arizona had a ban on public use of fireworks up until about ten years ago. Due to a strong lobbying push the ban was lifted here and in most other states. However, one July, while it was still illegal here, a few of young married guys in our extended family decided to send away for fireworks. They managed to set our little North Phoenix Mountain on fire with their third rocket. Not a fun Fourth!
Today, many cities are cancelling regular firework displays and using drones to light up the sky. The bottom of the drone is just one big LED light that can burst hundreds of lumens of light. They dance around the sky creating illuminated formations. Many towns are hiring the drone companies to put on a safe Independence Day show.
In years past I’ve seen unbelievable fireworks taking place on yachts in Honolulu. The boats move out a distance from shore and begin shooting off their rockets. The sky and the reflection on the water is breathtaking. Later on that night, it wasn’t so much fun when kids lit a string of firecrackers on the floors above our room in our hotel and tossed them down. We were treated to loud explosions shooting down past our room all night long!
We stood in a park in Portland, Oregon one Independence Day and watch a spectacular fireworks show from some large barges in the Columbia River. Thousands of people on both shores were treated to a safe and grand show.
For many years, while in Laguna Beach on the fourth, we were able to see, in planned sequence, fireworks starting down the coastline, shows from Dana Point, then Laguna, next north at Emerald Bay, Corona del Mar and then finally Newport Beach.
Firework displays on the Fourth of July has grown in our country since the first festival in 1777 in Philadelphia. Now rockets are ordered for weddings, birthdays, after a touchdown at a football game and just about any other occasion you can think of. Disneyland spends between $40,000 and 50,000 a night on their fireworks.

So what is your favorite Fourth of July fireworks memory? You’ll have to admit nothing beats the first minute you held that sparkler!

“Who’s Celebrating the Fourth This Year?
By
Gerry Niskern
Do you remember the first time you held a sparkler on the Fourth of July? That’s all the little kids got to hold, but what a thrill; holding fire for the first time. And it was okay!
I had intended to go down memory lane with some descriptions of past Fourth of July celebration stories. I have a lot and it would have been easy. But something stopped me. I didn’t have the heart.
How could I write about celebrating the Fourth and our country’s promise of “liberty and justice” for all when suddenly the United States Supreme court struck down Roe vs Wade. Over half of our nation’s population, women, no longer had liberty to control their own bodies?
In my lifetime I have watched our country go from strict anti-abortion laws to the “right to choose” and now, back again! I remember as a young wife talking with other women about our relief when the court handed down their decision. Abortion was legal for those who chose. We thought it was settled!
As a young girl I remember reading a book about the courageous efforts of Margaret Sanger, the famous American birth control activist. Even though I was impressed I really didn’t realize what a great service she had done for women. She devoted her life to legalizing birth control and making it universally available for women.
When she began her work, In the early 20th century, family planning and women’s healthcare were not spoken about in public. She was charged with breaking the law by making information available thru the mail to poor women. She was arrested more than once and went on to open a clinic in 1923 that eventually became the Planned Parenthood Federation of America.
Sanger’s story was just one of many activists who have worked courageously for the inalienable rights of women over the life span of our country’s history. It is going to take many, many activists to work towards bringing the right to choose back to the women in the United States. I have a granddaughter, a great-grandaughter and a great-great too! They will all, in their lifetime, be effected by politicians passing unfair laws effecting not only their right to control their own bodies, but even the use of contraceptives. It seems unthinkable, but it is going to happen.
The young women in this country have a fight on their hands. I think they are up to it!

“Who gets to come?”
By
Gerry Niskern
The argument about immigration in this country has gone on for years. Politicians use the problem on the border to make campaign promises they know they can’t keep. The situation at the border needs to be solved immediately and there is no excuse why our government, with its access to some of the best minds in the world, hasn’t developed a good workable plan.
It’s also been estimated that there are at least l2 million undocumented people living in the United States today. They need a way out of the shadows. Many have been here for years. They have bought homes, sent kids to college and paid taxes. Many benefits that have been deducted from their paychecks will never be realized by them.
The last Amnesty bill was passed in 1986 under President Reagan. At that time about 3 million illegals were allowed to become citizens. The bill expired and we need another one desperately. Everyone working in this country needs to be accounted for.
Immigration has always been a great social, economic and cultural benefit to this country. We have benefited from more innovation, stronger work ethic and overall economic productivity.
People want to come here for a better life for themselves and their families. They are willing to make sacrifices, work long hours and take jobs that U.S. citizens will not do in service and construction. They do not have an easy way of life! The birth rate in this country has fallen dramatically and we need these workers and taxpayers to maintain the social safety net in the country.
As the granddaughter of an immigrant, I feel a kinship with other immigrants in my everyday life. And when I stop to count them, there are a lot! My hair stylist is from the Philippines. A family that helps me with the yard, occasional house clean up, and other chores I can’t do any more are from Mexico. When I needed home care after surgery a couple of years ago, I had various women from Haiti, Brazil and parts unknown. My plumber is from Russia, two of my doctors are from the Middle East and the Cardiologist is Chinese. And the mechanic who keeps my l6 years old CRV running smoothly is Vietnamese.
This country of immigrants needs help. A workable plan to control the border and a plan for Amnesty to help the thousands of workers living in the shadows.

“Inflation 101”
By
Gerry Niskern
“Inflation is the time when those who saved for a rainy day get soaked.” Unknown author
A white haired lady stopped me at the grocery store the other day. “I can remember when toilet paper was fifty cents for a 4 pack!” she declared indignantly as she waved the pack at me.
“Hey,” I replied. “I can remember when we were first married and our weekly food budget was ten dollars. It went up to fifteen when we had our first baby.”
We had that budget because a wise insurance agent gave us a budget book to keep for the first year. “Always go to the store together and write down every single thing you buy, even a pair of shoe laces.” He continued, “Do that for the first year and you will never be asking each other in years to come, where did the money go?” I always chuckle when I remember my young husband discovering the price of Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Needless to say, we didn’t buy any, but he did remark to his parents later that he hadn’t realized the cost of cream cheese when he was eating it at home. In later years he loved to tell the story later of how he would put donuts and bananas in the cart, but when we got home they weren’t there. “She always put them back when I wasn’t looking!”
We didn’t buy the salesman’s insurance, but I was always grateful for his wise consul.
That morning at the market last week was unusually busy and then I remembered. Of course, it was the day the Social Security checks had arrived! Seniors were out in force armed with their coupons and indignation. Being on Social Security makes everyone really good at math. There’s a kinship among those “first of the month” shoppers. “Hey, there’s a sale on Libbys canned green beans, and there is a good price on eggs today too. Did you see bananas are 59 cents a pound?”
There is a quote that goes, “Basic Economics: It’s the most complicated simple subject there is”
The Pandemic created worldwide economic turmoil, insurmountable supply chain issues and inflation followed. Political parties are being blamed by the other side. Economists are saying it is going to take time. Seniors are saying, “ Hurry every chance you get.”
I stopped for gas on the way home. Don’t Ask!

“Too Young to March”
By
Gerry Niskern
Several million of our youngest citizens should have taken to the streets around the nation in protest last week. The country’s infants needed their formulas and the stores were only stocking around 43% of the usual amount.
Not all babies have a “Dairy Queen” in residence. Not all mothers want to breast feed, for many reasons. That is their choice. The giant baby formula business is cornered by four companies in the United States. Abbott, the largest owns 40% of the market.
When one of the baby formula factories was shut down in February due to problems, it caused a large deficit , along with supply chain issues that were already happening because of the pandemic. Select batches of Similac, Alimentum and EleCare were recalled. Other factories could not make up the severe shortages quickly enough. And our former President’s trade policy made it very hard to have truckloads sent from Canada.
Of course, the infant formula scare reminded me of raising my own kids. I feed the first two, but son #2 was different. A couple of months after birth he developed an allergy to milk products. Everything came up. In desperation, I resorted to consulting a pediatrician. The family doctor who delivered them always took care of any kid’s problems. After checking the baby out thoroughly the specialist recommended I give him buttermilk! He accepted it, loved it, and thrived on it. Who knew?
I was also reminded of stories I heard about great-grandmothers, on both sides of the family, resorting to “sugar tits” to keep a fussy baby happy. As it was explained to me, long ago mothers used to mix some sugar and butter together and place it on a clean cloth which they rolled into a cone and gave it to the baby to suck on. Hey, whatever worked!
Luckily babies in today’s world have every type formula to meet their nutritional needs. Our country has very strict standards but our government has arranged for some European countries who meet those standards are going to help supply the desperately needed formula.
The shortage is an ongoing problem and we are going to have to look for a more permanent solution. Production and supply demands must be meet. Every day the need grows.
Feed those young citizens!

“My Maxim Mother”

By

Gerry Niskern

One of my greatest embarrassments as a kid was to be given ten cents to go to the grocery store for a loaf of bread. “But, Mom,” I used to argue, “The clerk always says it’s eleven cents. A penny for the tax.”
“Tell them it’s a sin to tax our daily bread,” she always declared indignantly, “right is right.”
I didn’t realize it until many years later but I was being raised by the maxim method. My mother had a maxim or proverb to fit every occasion. The many squabbles between my sister and me were settled with one of us being told to just be big about it.
Mother brushed and braided my hair into pigtails every morning until I was twelve years old. The answer to my pleas to have it cut and permed were met with the admonishment, “Young lady, you are skating on thin ice with all those crocodile tears.
Her sense of timing was eerie. When I was a teenager I was convinced that she had a built-in alarm that told her exactly when my boyfriend and I had reached the edge of our front yard after a date. The front door light suddenly blazed across the porch steps. I’m sure she breathed a sigh of triumph and smugly said to herself, “ I nipped that in the bud.”
I don’t know how she knew I had ditched high school one day even before my girlfriend and I came strolling up the street after the usual dismissal time. The front door opened with a flourish as she declared, “She was mad as a wet hen because I hadn’t attended school that afternoon and if I thought I had gotten away with it I had another thought coming. You’ve cooked your own goose and your dad is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks!”
Family holidays, birthdays and even funerals were command appearances.
“What do you mean? You have a date?” she would ask. “Your Aunt Annie was the salt of the earth. I don’t care if you can’t remember her. The eulogy is at two o’clock…be there! After all, blood is thicker than water.”
Long after I was married and became a mother myself, she continued to mother the young women who worked for her and my dad in their small manufacturing business. She always started Monday morning with samples of a new recipe that melted in your mouth for everyone. She brought them cuttings from her flower garden to start in theirs. As she helped them at their worktables they were given liberal doses of her views on good morals. She advised them to take the bull by the horns and break it off with boyfriends that were not treating them respectively or were always four sheets to the wind. “After all,” she’d say,
“Everyone knows that a leopard can’t change his spots!”
When a new girl came to work that was having a hard time financially and was between the devil and the deep blue sea, I would get a call from Mom. “Clean out your kids closets and bring me everything they’ve outgrown. My new girl’s kids needs clothes.” A cash advance on their first paycheck always accompanied the clothes when my dad wasn’t looking.
She always encouraged my talent in art even as a child. “Hitch your wagon to a star and you can do anything you want,” she declared over and over again
Years later, during one of my most important gallery interviews, I was asked where I had been showing. Imagine my horror, when I heard myself answering that I had been hiding my light under a bushel basket. I couldn’t believe I had actually said that to the very puzzled young gallery director. “Oh, no,” I thought. “I’ve finally turned into my mother.”
Then I thought again, I’m proud to be like someone who was worth her weight in gold!