Did you hear that Beep? It’s likely happened to you before and it usually happens in the middle of the night. The dreaded battery dying in the smoke detector. Over the past few years, I have even seen commercials on television around daylight savings time reminding people to change the batteries in their fire alarms when they change the time on the clock. I actually follow this recommendation because I dont like to be woken in the middle of the night by the BEEP sound.

Several years ago, Michael and I had taken a day off to do some christmas shopping while the girls were at school. We had a list and when shopping was done at the mall, they opened early during the holiday season. We went to the local mall, knocked out our list and headed to IHOP for a patty melt (I just love a patty melt) and headed home for the afternoon before the girls got home from school.

We werent home long when I heard BEEP. Here we go, I thought, trying to figure out which of the 7 smoke detectors was beeping. Michael and I decided to tag team and wait for the next beep to see which smoke detector it came from. “It’s the one in the hallway” I said. “No, no, its the one in Hunter’s room.” “Wait, its the one at the bottom of the stairs!” We want on like this for about 30 minutes or so until I finally went to the garage to get whatever 9v batteries we had and replaced all the batteries we would. It felt like the problem was solved and then BEEP. As we continued to try and track down which smoke detector was beeping, we noticed the smoke detector in the playroom was a different make and model than the rest of them. That had to be it, we thought, the smoke detector itself was defective. Michael pulled that one out and headed up to Lowes to get a replacement.

When he returned, we installed the new smoke detector and thought all was well, until about 5 minutes later……BEEP. At this point it became funny as well as frustrating. This time we were convinced the defective smoke detector was the one in our room, so Michael took it down and was preparing to replace it with the one he had bought earlier at Lowes. While we was working in the bedroom, I went to my work office to check messages and as I was stepping out into the hallway I heard it. BEEP. This time it was the loudest I had heard all afternoon, so I stood in the doorway and waited to hear it again. BEEP. But wait, it wasn’t from up above, it was coming from closer to the floor. I looked in the direction of the noise and what did I find, but the plug in carbon monoxide detector.

Did you know that if you put on your reading glasses and read the small print on the back of a plug in carbon monoxide detector, it will say that the detector has an expiration date (stamped on the detector) and it will signal with a BEEP when the detector has expired.

All in all, we spent about 3 hours that day tracking down what we thought was the source of the BEEP. When we figure out what it was and thought about how comical it must have been to see us running all around the house trying to track down the mysterious beeping. That thought had us laughing on an off the remainder of the day.

All these years later, I still change the batteries in the smoke detectors in spring and in fall. When I do, I remember back to that afternoon chasing down the BEEP.

People of a certain age will understand the phrase “I can’t carry a tune in a bucket”. In my case, I can’t carry one in a bucket, a truck, a semi, a train or any other thing that is really big and carries things. The problem is, I really like to sing….and dance.

Just the other day, Hunter and I were in the grocery store wandering the aisles and it was quiet enough you could hear the music playing. My grocery store plays my kind of music, which is primarily classic rock. I don’t remember the song that was playing, but it wasn’t long before Hunter and I both were dancing in the aisle to the tune, whisper-singing the words. We looked at each other, she said we were weird, and we went right on singing and dancing while looking for crackers on the shelves.

After that fleeting moment realizing my girl is the same kind of weird I am, I was reminded of a time much longer ago when I was singing and dancing in the car and received a completely different response.

When the girls were little, we lived out in the country about 35 miles from my office. I would get out early and drop them off at a daycare near my office rather than out by our house which provided me a lot of opportunity to entertain them to and from work. My car only had a radio at first so I would make up stories to entertain Hunter during our trips. Mostly about the cats and dogs. I would weave in old cartoons such as Pepe’ Le Pew thinking Precious (a beautiful black and white long hair) was a skunk and he was in love with her and other crazy stories. Around the time Erin was born, Michael got me a new car and this one had a CD player. It wasn’t long before I had CD’s with children’s songs and the School House Rock series to help them learn along the way.

Erin didn’t grow quite as quickly as Hunter did. Hunter was 30lbs at 1 year old and had 8 teeth before she was 6 months old. Erin was born weighing more than 3lbs less than Hunter and didn’t get her first tooth until she was more than a year old. With this in mind, she also didn’t speak until well after that. As with most kids, her first words were Momma, Dadda and NO! (She still likes that word, NO!).

One summer day, as we were driving along on the way home. Hunter was 4 and sitting in her booster seat behind the passenger side of the car and Erin was somewhere between 1 and 2 and was in her booster seat behind the drivers side. With that seating chart, you can imagine I could not really see Erin well. As Erin could only say a word or so, Hunter and I had the music turned up pretty well and were enjoying singing loudly and poorly as was our norm. Along the way, and only once in awhile I would hear a noise. I turned down the music and the noise was no longer there. Thinking I had been mistaken, I turned the music back up and Hunter and I began to sing even more loudly and dance in our seats.

Again, I hear this noise. Where is it coming from? What is that noise? I turned the sound down again and listened ~ nothing. So I decided to pay close attention when I turned the music back up this time. I didn’t make it quite as loud as before and this time only I began to sing. The noise came again and I could tell it was Erin. She was trying to say something. What was it? What was she saying? When I turned the music down, she had stopped. Now that I knew it was her, I paid extra close attention and turned up the music again, singing. “NO!” is what she was saying. Putting her tiny hand up like a stop sign, she was saying “NO!, NO!” . When I would stop singing, she would stop saying “NO!”, put her hand down and go along looking out the window. I didn’t know whether to laugh or be offended. A one year old kid had raised her hand in protest to my singing.

The truth is, I know I can’t sing. I have known forever, but I love it and it makes me feel good. So I still sing and dance, and therefore when I am home alone or driving in the car listening to music, I reach over and turn it up loud and sing like nobody is watching; not even Erin and her tiny hand of protest.

Have you ever had a Chili Dog?  I would suggest that likely 97% of the people reading this blog would answer YES and if they liked it, they would have some sort of sparkle in their eye and fade back into a memory at a ball park or picnic when they enjoyed the perfect Chili Dog. 

I don’t like hot dogs.  In fact, the only place I enjoy a hot dog is inside Wrigley Field, for an afternoon game and it has to be a Chicago style hot dog that includes everything but the kitchen sink (yellow mustard, chopped white onions, bright green sweet pickle relish, a dill pickle spear, tomato slices or wedges, pickled sport peppers and a dash of celery salt and DON’T ask for ketchup) on a poppy-seed covered bun.  Why on earth would that be the hot dog that I pick as my favorite, you ask?  Because it has so much stuff on it you CANT TASTE THE HOT DOG would be the answer.  (Did you not have to watch that movie in the 5^th grade?) With that in mind, sit back and hear a story about chili, chili dogs and more. 

Michael loves a Chili Dog.  When we were first married and moved into our first home, we lived out in the middle of nowhere.  As a result I made a lot of crockpot meals so it would be ready when we got home from work, etc.  One cold weekend, I had made some mighty fine chili and as we were enjoying it for dinner on a Friday evening, Michael exclaimed how much he loved a chili dog.  That was Friday and being the wonderful wife I am, when we got home from church on Sunday I made some football-worthy lunch in the form of a chili dog.  Being a logical human being and having made chili earlier in the weekend, I made hot dogs, warmed up some chili and plopped it onto the hot dog and handed it over.  The look on Michael’s face was priceless – “What is this?” he asked.  “A chili dog.  You said you liked chili dogs”, I replied.  He looked at it again, looked up at me and said “It has beans”.  “Yes, I said, it has chili on it.”  It was at this time I learned of a thing called “hot dog chili” and that the best one to buy is made by Texas Pete.  Rest assured, any chili dog after that day was made with Texas Pete hot dog chili (and I always have some in the pantry just in case). 

Fast forward about 6 months and we had a family gathering at our house.  Michael’s sister brought sweet and sour meatballs.  Michael went crazy over them and found out from her it is easy as frozen meatballs, a jar of grape jelly and some chili sauce dumped into a crockpot and set on low for several hours.  If you have had meatballs at a cocktail party, you likely had these.  Of course, being the wonderful wife I am, I purchased the ingredients to make these meatballs and had it planned to have one Sunday afternoon during football season.  I put them on in the crockpot in the morning and when football started, brought a bowl of them in to the living room to surprise Michael.  He looked at them and said “What is this?”  “It’s those meatballs your sister made, you said you like them.” I answered.  “They’re fuzzy” he replied.  By this time I am getting a little peeved, both at Michael and at myself.  It’s a stupid meatball recipe with 2 simple ingredients, what is the matter with them I think.  Michael starts to laugh and asks what I used to make them.  Miffed, I replied “Just what you told me, Meatballs, Grape Jelly and Hot Dog chili.”  He snickered again, and explained that it is not made with hot dog chili, but with Chili Sauce.  By now I am really frustrated.  Who knew there are all these different kinds of chili!  Chili-chili, hot dog chili, chili sauce that I have no clue what is used for other than to make these meatballs. 

The following summer, Michael’s sister invited us to her house for a 4^th of July cookout and we were asked to bring a side dish.  When he found out she was going to have hot dogs, he asked me to pick up some chili to bring along for them.  Given my track record relative to chili dogs with beans and fuzzy meatballs, I bought every kind of chili I could find and brought it along.  This may have been overkill, but I am just a girl, who does not eat hot dogs unless I am watching a Cubs game at Wrigley, of course.  

<Insert Harry Carey’s voice here> Let’s Hear It Folks!  A-One…..A Two…….“Take me out to the Ball Game, Take me out to the Crowd……..”

Today if you went through my pantry, you would find all the fixings for Chili, Texas Pete Chili Dog sauce and Chili Sauce. #Lesson learned. 🙂

Many years ago when Hunter what maybe 2 years old, I like many other moms took her to the mall to sit on Santa’s lap and get a picture taken. I never thought I would be one of those moms, but then I became a mom and decided it was the best idea since sliced bread.

As Hunter and I stood in the line, inside a hot mall with our winter coats on and getting hotter by the minute , I tried to keep her entertained by making up stories about the fake reindeer and penguins they had on the fake snow. Once in awhile we would watch as a mom brought her child kicking and screaming toward the poor man dressed in a Santa suit in the hopes of snapping a quick picture where the crying looked like a smile.

I’m sure you can guess what happened……yup, we waited a good hour, me making up stories about the fake animals on the fake snow leading up to the fake Santa and when it was finally our turn, I walked Hunter up to the Santa and she promptly said NO! There was reasoning, Santa talked to her but NO! was the final answer. I had watched the other parents force their kids to sit on Santa’s lap crying and had decided early in the line I was not going to do the same, so we said thank you and walked away.

As for me, my Santa memories go way back to a little cabin that used to be set up right next to the railroad crossing at Central Avenue and Sheridan Road in Highland Park, Illinois. Each year the park district would erect this little tiny cabin and Santa would be in there weekends and evenings with a heater in the room, all decorated like it was where Santa lived and selling hot cocoa as we waited in line in the frigid Chicago-land winters (trust me, Winter was way colder with much more snow when I was a kid….global warming is real). Families would wait in line with their kids to go in and sit on Santa’s lap, take a picture and the kids would tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas.

As you can see by the pictures included with this post, I was young when we last went to visit Santa. Years later I worked at the Highland Park Theater just down the road from where the Santa House was usually set up and I had forgotten about it for a time until one Christmas season when Sue, Gini, Nancy, Shelly and I were walking down the street after a movie and stopped right at the site where the house once stood and I noted it was gone. They had never been to the Santa House when they were little because they grew up one town over from me so of course I had to stop everything and tell them all about it.

Michael’s favorite movie at Christmas time is A Christmas Story and while I did not grow up in 1940’s Ohio, each time I watch it and sends me back to snow-filled streets, Christmas Eve at the Rouses’ house and skitchin’ behind cars on Windsor Road and of course, The Santa House.

I miss Independence Day in a small town.

I grew up on the edge between two small towns, Highland Park and Deerfield in a little 2-street neighborhood one house away from the main road.  We were so close to the border, we were allowed to choose which school district we would attend, so Deerfield it was.  My mother grew up just down the street from us and my Nana still lived there.

Each year on the 4th of July we would get up early and make our way down Deerfield road toward town.  There were sidewalks on both sides of the 4 lane road and given how close we lived to our destination, it was easier to just walk.   About a 1/2 mile or so down the road, along the fence in front of the golf course,  we would set up shop with a chair or two.  The original folding yard chair with aluminum frame and weaved seats.  The kids would sit on the curb – waiting.

We were waiting for the 4th of July Parade.  It was a great parade, with the Shriners on little tricycles, bands playing, floats, twirling batons and more.  As a little kid, it felt like it went on forever – in a good way.  We were set up toward the end of the parade route so the wait seemed like an eternity, but we would run into friends and play chicken in the street to pass the time until the parade came by. Our faces would light up, we would plug our ears at the band and giggle at the clowns on the tiny bicycles and Shriner’s hats.

After the parade, we would walk home and often had a picnic at my Nana’s house.  I recall a few years where it was too hot to sit outside, so we would bring the picnic table into the garage to eat in there.  My Nana’s garage was so clean, you could eat off the floor.  I think my brother Neal still has that picnic table to this day –  it has to be at least 60 years old.

Later in the evening after leaving Nana’s we would head one of two places to watch fireworks.  Deerfield High School or over to the Ropiquet’s house to watch the fireworks at Sunset Park in Highland Park.   When going to the Deerfield HS show, we would bring blankets and be way back from the field.  The fireworks were actually set off over the football field and a band played in the stands ahead of time.  You had to pay for that seating, so we stayed out of bounds near what became the soccer field later.   The Sunset Park show we would set up in the driveway of the Ropiquets as they lived right across the street.  This was perfect as there were chairs, no itchy grass and it wasn’t as crowded.   In both cases, the fireworks shows were spectacular!

To this day, small towns near where I grew up do their own fireworks shows.   Some still do parades.   I was recently in Florida where they actually coordinate so one town does them one weekend and another town another day so people can enjoy both.  In the more rural area where I am without a center town, we rely on the baseball team or the fair grounds to put on fireworks shows.  No matter how it is demonstrated across the country, Independence Day is a day to celebrate America and the new independent nation it became on July 4th, 1776.

Happy Birthday America

I always hated to do laundry.  When I was growing up, we learned early how to do laundry.  Our washer and dryer were in the basement, in the room with the sump pump (which always freaked me out), the utility sink, the extra freezer and the dreaded ironing board.

I look back now and realize how lucky we were.  Not everyone had washers AND driers.  Often only a washer.  I would give anything to have an actual “utility sink” now and while I truly hate to iron, its something that every boy and girl should learn how to do.

Being the only girl to a working mother, she taught me how to do laundry fairly early.  “Separate the colors from the whites”; “pre-soak the laundry in the utility sink if there is a stain”.   My mom had some friend who sold Amway, so we used Amway Laundry Detergent way back in the early 70’s before I understood what a Pyramid Scheme was.  It makes sense now, though, why my mom avoided that woman like the plague after some time.  Learning to iron, I recall spending hours in the basement, in poor lighting, practicing by ironing my dads hankerchieves and boxer shorts.

But the laundry basket was the most memorable thing of all.  After I moved out of the house, first off to school, then home, then out again and being in a position where I had to do my own laundry, I have gone through many iterations of the perfect laundry basket.  NONE of them held up to the laundry basket my mom had.  One could draw an analogy to Goldie Locks; One was too small, One was too plastic, One was too floppy.  There was no laundry basket that fit the bill of the one my mother had.  Her laundry basket was round, not oval as many wicker ones today are.  The handles were also wicker and weaved into the basket.  It was hand-made, not machined so the weave was perfectly done for each individual piece of wood.  It was smooth on the inside and out, almost as though it was oiled, not made of rough, cheap wood like the ones found today so it didn’t pull on your clothing and over time it weathered and gained a patina.

When I bought my first house my mom gave me her old laundry basket.  It was like giving laundry a new life.  It’s the perfect size, a large opening, wicker, sturdy handles.   This laundry basket was purchased by my mother in the early 1950’s after my parents built the home I grew up in in 1948 and were preparing to start a family.  I have had it for over 30 years and have hauled laundry to and from laundry mats, up and down stairs, raised 2 kids who never wear the same pair of jeans 2 days in a row in addition to beach towels and more.  Last year one of the handles came apart and I have actually considered finding someone to put a new one on.

Yes, it may be an odd thing to get attached to, but I must say if you had the same laundry basket I do, you would nod in understanding.  And heck, its over 60 years old!  At this rate, it may become one of my kids…..

Imagine that – a hand-me-down laundry basket.

 

 

Tomorrow will be the 10 year anniversary of my father’s passing.  It occurs to me that so many people who are important to me never got to meet my dad and while there are far too many hilarious stories I could tell, one that I tell so very often I would share again.

My dad was a Lineman for Commonwealth Edison power company in Chicago.  His main dispatch location was out of the Skokie Road office in Northfield, Illinois;  not too awfully far from our house.  Some of the little things I remember from being a little girl include that he was never home at Christmas because working a holiday was triple-pay, but he always managed to make it home for us to open presents and would park his bucket truck in the driveway so he could see the flashing light in the dash indicating he had a dispatch call coming through.  He often slept on the floor in the living room right in front of the heater vent in the winter because he was always cold from working outside.  He had the roughest hands from the weather and used this horrible stuff called Corn Huskers Lotion to try to make them smoother – it didn’t work.  He had round scars on both his hands where he had been electrocuted as a young lineman and the scars were where the electricity escaped his body.

But one of my favorite memories came back to me not long before I moved from Chicago to Virginia.  In November 1996 I had a business friend visit (actually the person who introduced me to Michael) and I took the afternoon off to take him downtown to see the city.  He had been to our offices so many times before but had never seen the city as a tourist.   So we headed downtown and started with a drive down Lake Shore Drive and out to the Planetarium to take in the view of the city then made our way to the Sears Tower to the observation deck.  On the Sears Tower tour, the first thing you do is watch a video of the building of the tower.  As we sat there watching the video, I had a flashback………………….

When I was about 10 years old, the Sears Tower was under construction and was about the biggest thing to happen to Chicago and the United States since the 1920’s.  The new sky scraper was going to be the tallest building in the world, taking over the Empire State Building by at least 10 floors.  One afternoon in the summer while my dad was working he came home with his bucket truck.  A bucket truck is the kind used by a lineman from the telephone or electric company where the worker gets into the bucket and can operate it from inside the bucket or someone can operate it from the ground.  Raise the bucket high to get to the wires.  This replaced linemen from having to manually climb the poles as they had to in the 50’s and 60’s.

My dad came home knowing my brother Keith and I were home and it was a clear day.  Every once in awhile he would do this to give us and some of the neighbor kids a ride in the bucket.  On this day, he came home to give us a surprise.  I can remember like it was yesterday with my dad in the bucket with me, raising the bucket on its post as high as it could go and pointing to show me which way to look until I saw the shell of the Sears Tower in the distance.  It was just the steel girders, like a skeleton, but you could make it out. After I went, my brother went, then a few neighborhood kids, then I went again.

I had completely forgotten about that until sitting watching that movie and their was a shot of the skeleton as viewed from north of the city – just like my view was that beautiful day in 1972.   The tower was completed in 1973 and it would take another 23 years before I would cross the threshold for the first time and be reminded of my dad making a special trip home with his truck to show us from right in our driveway.

Michael and I were lucky enough to go to Bermuda a few months ago and in our trek to the Governor’s fort, I found this picture of a Bermuda Lineman, whom they call a “Kiteman”. Yup, put on some long underwear and a CarHart insulated jumper along with the rest of the equipment and that would be my dad. The green glass are insulators which can be found at the top of the   T-posts on a power line.  This insulates where the two lines meet and are tied off.  I don’t think we had a door in our entire house that wasn’t held open by one of these green glass insulators.

As an adult with kids now, I see the little things Dad’s do for their kids that go unnoticed or are so subtle the kids don’t get what’s happening at the time.  My hope would be that as they get older they find the same appreciation for those little things their dads did for them as I had and still have for my dad.

I have so many great stories about my dad I will have to share, but this one is definitely a favorite.

Miss you Dad

A few years ago I had occasion to spend a long weekend at a Minnesota lake with some of my childhood friends and a new friend too.  It reminded me a bit of when we used to go up to this lake in Wisconsin with all the neighborhood families (Tricarico’s, Rouses, Sieferts, Weils, us) and we would meet the Carlson family up there.   Mrs. Carlson had what seemed like a dozen kids and was raising them on her own after the untimely death of her husband years before.

My dad thought it would be a great idea to get one of those “pop up” campers when Keith and I were in Jr. High.  I think he thought we would use it all the time, go camping on weekends, take these great fishing trips and the like.  I recall exactly 2 times when we took it out of the driveway and one of them was to take it up to the lake to hang with the Carlson family and all the other neighborhood families.

It was a summer weekend.  Keith and I were each allowed to bring a friend on this trip, so I invited Karen Green.  She wasn’t much of a “camper”, but she was game to go.  Karen came to our house on a Friday afternoon, we packed up the car and headed out.  We picked up Keiths friend and got as far as the high school when there was a loud KACHUNK!  and SCCCRRRAAAAPPPEEEEEE!  My dad pulled over to investigate.  Evidently he hadn’t locked the hitch down on the ball, so we had hit a bump, the hitch popped right off and we had dragged the trailer by the chain along about 100 yards.

After about an hour delay,  we got back on the road and headed north.   When we arrived, all the rest of the families had already been there much of the week.  The Rouses and Weils had cottages next to each other, the Tricaricos had the super-cool A-Frame house they got every year (I LOVED that place!), the Carlsons had their cabin and we being only along for the weekend had our pop up camper.

There was a lot of wandering around the lake, going from house to house, playing in the water and general camp ground fun to be had for the kids while we were there.  The parents were usually split during the day with the men off fishing and the women huddled around a picnic table gossiping and playing cards.  On this particular weekend visit, all the kids we were over at the Weil’s cabin waiting for dinner to be fixed.   Some of the ladies had been consuming adult beverages…..which is important to the rest of the story.

From previous stories, you may have learned that these ladies, when they all get together, get loud, laugh, giggle and basically forget about anything else that is going on (sounds familiar!).  They get wrapped up in whatever the subject of the day is.  Margaret went into the kitchen to start the oven in preparation for dinner and came back out to the table, got a bit distracted and when she went back in to check on the oven (cigarette in hand) and opened the oven door, it caused a fireball.   Turns out the oven was gas and the pilot was not lit causing a gas fume buildup.

It was 1975.  Polyester was new and very popular.  Margaret always had a great tan and to show that off, she was wearing a pair of white polyester pants with the seam down the front and was wearing sandals.  Poor Margaret’s pants melted right to her legs from the fireball.  We heard the boom outside and before we could get inside, Margaret was out of the house grabbing ice.  Us kids were all scared, but  on the plus side the melted portion of the pants peeled right off. After the initial shock, lots of ice on her legs and even more ice in the cocktail glass, and the weekend was saved.  Lord knows, it could have been so much worse.

That was the last weekend we went up to the lake camp in Wisconsin.  I don’t think it had anything to do with the accident, but more that Keith and I were getting older, he was really good at baseball which means no open weekends and we ended up getting rid of the camper the next spring.  I

In a parallel universe, and about 40 years later; while my girlfriends and I were all together in Minnesota on the lake, at a cabin, there was a similar incident.   On our last night, while roasting marshmallows after a day on the lake and a visit to a bar to play the meat raffle, a small fire started on the lower deck.   The fire was put out quickly, but it reminded me a bit of the oven fire on the lake in Wisconsin all those years before.

There is a story to this platter, but then again, there is a story to everything, right?

The story of this platter goes wayyyyy back to my earliest Thanksgiving memories at our house on Windsor Road.  Each year, my mom hosted Thanksgiving at our house.  My Nana was in charge of the turkey and would cook it at home, stuffing INSIDE the bird and bring it to our house to finish off in our “tornado” oven in the basement.  Early on, we had the extended family for Thanksgiving as well; Aunt Shirley and Debbie, Aunt Glenna, Nana, our family and eventually Todd’s wife and kids and Neal’s (then fiance) Robin.  Aunt Shirley always made a strawberry jello salad (still a favorite of mine), mom made candied sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes and just for me she would make creamed spinach.

The platter was for the turkey.  It was the only time of the year we would ever see this platter.  I don’t even know where my mother stored it when it was not in use, but it was always there faithfully every year to serve the turkey on Thanksgiving.

We never ate Thanksgiving dinner in our dining room.   Our dining room was far too small for all those people.  In our basement we had a ping pong table, which makes for a great dining table when the net is down and a bed sheet is used for a tablecloth.   At some point, the ping pong table, having been sat on and broken, was replaced with a pool table.  We used that for a table for Thanksgiving as well, with another bed sheet making due for a tablecloth.  No matter where we had our Thanksgiving dinner, we always had The Turkey Platter to serve the bird.

After my mother died and my dad was selling the house, myself and my brothers’ wives were brought to the house to pick out a few things we may want.  I wanted some special Christmas ornaments, but had forgotten about the platter…..until we started hosting Thanksgiving at our home after Michael and I were married.  For several years, I mourned the loss of The Turkey Platter as an opportunity lost and wondered which brother may now have it or was it gone altogether.

Then one day the phone rang.  it was my dad and he was packing up to move into a senior apartment, so lots of stuff had to go.  He asked me if I wanted this platter he found.  I immediately got excited and asked “is it The Turkey Platter?”.   He didnt know exactly what I meant so I asked him to describe it to me, which in hind sight was silly given he could not see very well anymore.   He was having trouble describing it and I just kept saying “is it The Turkey Platter?”.  He said, “well, yes, it has a turkey on it”.   We agreed he would send it to me so he wrapped it up nice an cozy and shipped it to me.  I was giddy like a little girl when it arrived and as I unwrapped it found it was indeed “The Turkey Platter”.

I was so proud to use the platter that Thanksgiving and have used it each Thanksgiving, Christmas and Easter since.  Each time I unwrap it for the event we are hosting, I remember back to Thanksgivings in the cold basement on Windsor Road, eating around the ping pong dining table covered with a bed sheet and smile at the memory just as I am now.

I hope the Turkey Platter will be able to be passed down to my girls and they will have some of the same good memories of Thanksgivings will family or Christmas dinner with the  LaCombe family.  We don’t have a basement or a ping pong table, but I have been known to use a bed sheet as a table cloth…..and it worked great.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone…………..gobble gobble….

A Town with no name Picture

Those who work with me are often forced to listen to me read the stories written by my daughter.  She has a quick wit and a wild imagination and has some really funny stories to tell.    While cleaning her room recently, she ran across some old papers with stories she wrote in grade school.  She knows how much I love them so offered me the papers.  I called over my neighbor to read a few to him and in a few cases was laughing so hard I couldn’t breathe.  One of those stories is written below – I used her words exactly, so the grammar may not be up to par.  I have also attached the originals with a accompanying picture.  Read and enjoy:

An angry mob gathered in the middle of town square!  Mayor Phipps saw the torches and pitchforks of the crowd from his window.  He went outside and called a town meeting to see what the problem was.

Everyone gathered at the courthouse at once.  Two cousins named Jack and Jill told the mayor that the citizens wanted their town to have a name.  Just then Jimmy, the town grump burst through the door “NEVER!”  “I like living in a town with no name!”

They tied Jimmy  up and put him in a spider infested closet.  Jack and Jill suggested that a contest be held to come up with a name.  Everyone submitted their idea, but they were all lame.  So they left the town as no name, released Jimmy from the closet and sold the spiders to a pet store.

The End.