Getting sentimental over the "wrong" things

Two of my dearest friends are committed sentimentalists. I tease these sterling women about tearing up over a motor-oil commercial, and they tease me about having a heart of stone. As always, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. It's true I don't usually get misty-eyed over puppies and kittens and toddler girls in princess dresses, but even the Basking Snark has her moments. Today I was surprised to find myself torn up over saying goodbye to some old, past-their-prime kitchen accoutrements.

A series of unforeseen events has led me into a much-needed kitchen renovation, and demolition started today. As my trusty old gas cooktop was hauled out the door, I felt something prickling at the back of my eyes, and that hot, choking feeling in my throat.

The original cooktop in this house was one of those old, unreliable, electric coil burner things. FOUR burners, I'd like to add, not the five that most devoted cooks consider the absolute minimum for getting through a big meal. One Thanksgiving, as I was entertaining guests from New Zealand who'd never had an American Thanksgiving, three burners died a sputtering, sparking death. Only the fact that my mother lived next door prevented us from having to rely on another tried-and-true American tradition: peanut butter and jelly. First thing the next morning, my mother, my young son and I Black Fridayed ourselves right out of here, eager to finally buy my long-coveted five-burner gas cooktop.

I loved that thing. It wasn't the fanciest model on earth, but it worked like a dream and gave us years of chili, tea, jam, stir-fries, real fries, pancakes, bacon, Christmas fudge and toffee, and, in the waning years of my mother's life, endless heatings-up of Campbell's Cream o' Crap soup. (I tried, food friends, I tried when she was strong and healthy, and I failed. During her final months on earth, my little Wolfie Momma had as much Cream o' Crap as she could get down with her fragile little kitten-like sips. I did not sneer, neither did I argue. The time to elevate her tastes to real food had passed.)

It was a little hard to clean. Once in a while the simmer burners resented their supporting role and went full BTU, turning fragile Hollandaise into an industrial-strength adhesive. The electronic ignition had a mood disorder and would throw sparks now and then. Once I inadvertently sprayed some sort of cleaning goo into an igniter, started a real fire, and ended up with a houseful of delectably handsome firefighters. (Most of my domestic catastrophes have a silver lining and that one was sterling.) But we always managed to work out our differences and get on with things.

When I left the house today to get out of the noise and dust, I spotted my old plastic paper-towel dispenser in the pile that was to be taken away for disposal. That  thing never was quite right, but it was hard to see it in the junk pile. Mounting that dispenser crookedly in a too-tight spot under the wrong cabinet was one of the first big-boy, man-around-the-house things my sweet son ever did for me. Oh, don't get me wrong--I won't miss it--it never worked right and was the cause of way too much profanity. But I still had to blink back a tear when I saw it on the rubble pile.

Is it silly to get sentimental over outdated kitchen items that are going to be replaced by much nicer kitchen items? Probably so, if what's really going on is attachment to items.

But if those items really mean a lifetime of meals and parties and people and vast pots of Halloween chili and and Daddy's red sauce and silky Thanksgiving gravy and countless summers of jam with my best friend and a little boy with a huge heart trying to take care of his momma, and, yes, my mother's last few bowls of Cream o'Crap, then no. The tears, the clutch at the heart, the choked-up throat simply mean that I'm attached to my people and the endless joys and few little heartaches that kitchen has hosted. Oh, and at least one episode of some reallllllyyy wonderful firefighter watching.

Peace and joy, my friends.

An Independence Day salute to my parents and my almost-parents

Sometimes I miss the Independence Days of my childhood. I suppose it's a sign of increasing age--a sentimental pull back to a golden era that probably wasn't so golden. Surely there was plenty to tut-tut and complain about, but maybe childhood is an insulator, or an exoskeleton of sorts, that shields the young from seeing the adult quarrels, the frustrations, the disappointments and tensions that no doubt colored the day for them just as they do for us. Or maybe it's the passage of time--a halo effect, or selective memory--that pulls us backward to what we see as sweet, carefree celebrations.

I've realized, though, that I don't even care what mind tricks cause this longing. I'd welcome a time travel machine, so I could zoom back to 1960-something, to that house with the built-up porch step and the narrow-slat hardwood floors, the long, galley kitchen, and the dichondra lawn. I didn't know why then, and I don't know why now, but somehow that dichondra lawn was a Big Deal, a thing to be prized. 

The Fourth of July was a big deal in our small family. My parents were hospitable people, and Daddy’s talents in the kitchen more than compensated for Mother's propensity to overthink the menu and end up with results that ranged from bilge water to arson. Daddy was solidly in the “burgers and dogs” camp. The Fourth of July was one of the times he put his foot down and prevented Mother from going all weirdly fondue-ish and taking improper liberties with canned crescent rolls and Vienna sausages. Potato chips and Lipton onion dip carried the day for “appetizers,” and that was that, said my normally passive father.

In the early afternoon, Mother and Daddy would crack into those metal ice-cube trays, probably three dozen of them, pouring ice into a cooler to chill the bottles of Fresca and Coke and fruity Shasta sodas before the Fosters and the Dugans and my "other grandmother," Tia Helen, got there, undoubtedly parched from their two-mile treks to our house. Invariably, one of the icy metal handles would adhere to somebody's damp hand, and the day's first barrage of profanity would waft down the hall. I always tried not to laugh out loud when my mother quickly went to "Oh, SUGAR" as I came into the room. (By the way, Mother, that "don't teach her to swear" trick didn't work--I can hold my own in the finest waterfront saloons.)

Once Daddy was confident that Mother could successfully put ice into a cooler (hey, for someone with her culinary prowess, it was harder than it looked), he'd give me a personal lesson in independence. "Get in the car, Little Sunshine, and you can help Daddy go to the store."

(YAY! I get to go to the store with Daddy! YAAAAYYY! She can't make me fold red and blue paper napkins into pinwheels!) Off we'd go in the Volkswagen van, or, if it were hot already, the air-conditioned Ford Galaxie. Daddy preferred Alpha Beta; I know not why. He'd let me push the cart. He pretended not to notice when I ramped up the speed and jumped onto the cart to freewheel down the aisles, unless I inconvenienced another shopper, in which case I had to apologize and "knock it the hell off." 

The haul was pretty typical for a middle-class, suburban Fourth of July menu--hot dogs (this was long before we pitched a fit over every little nitrate), ground beef (Daddy and Mother would argue over who would make the hamburger patties; then Daddy and Wayne Foster would argue over who was going to grill them), white "enriched" buns for both, ketchup, mustard, potato chips, sour cream, powdered onion-soup/dip mix, pickle chips, sweet pickle relish, "charp Cheddar cheese" (Daddy LOATHED that rubbery orange pre-sliced cheese-like crap and refused to buy it), onions, tomatoes, corn on the cob (we used the full phrase, to distinguish it from the canned and frozen corn that was assumed in those days) watermelon, ice cream, cones (Daddy wanted sugar cones, but I wanted cake cones and the little princess always won) and beer--plenty of beer, beer, beer, stupid, stinky, nasty beer. Beer is what finally killed my Daddy and I don't want to talk about it just now.

Daddy would have bought the first box of fireworks the day the stands went up. But on the way home, he'd flash me a crooked grin and say "YOU don't have any fireworks, do you, Little Sunshine? We only have MY fireworks. Hadn't we better get YOU some fireworks?" I'd say "Sure, yes, please!" and he'd seal the deal with his cobalt-blue don't-tell-your-mother wink. He'd buy the biggest box of fireworks available and swear to Mother he didn't remember how much it cost. We had a pact of silence, Daddy and I. 

The afternoon droned on forever. It really WAS forever--forever and ever, amen--until my third cousins, the Ds, got there. The Ds were lucky because they had five kids; and because their mom, Aunt H, let them have as much candy and soda as they wanted. They also had no curfew, and my only girl cousin was allowed to wear makeup and date boys when she was fresh out of grade school. For years, I envied the anarchy in which they were reared. (Don’t worry, my common sense and gratitude kicked in soon enough!) The Ds also brought the biggest, most expensive assortment of fireworks for later. 

Then the Fosters would show up and the PARTY WAS ON!!! They brought a huge box of fireworks, probably also the biggest one sold. Their mom, Katy, was another mother to me -- she was my mother's best friend and most ardent political debating partner. Oh, who am I kidding -- those weren't debates; they were shouting matches. Mother and Katy would resolve the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights predicaments at high volume, while Daddy and Wayne got dinner going on the Weber charcoal grill in the back yard. I can still smell the Kingsford charcoal briquettes and lighter fluid, a preamble to the gunpowder reside we’d smell later. Peggy, Shelly, Mike and I would play school in my pink-gingham room. As the oldest, Peggy was always the teacher. Mona was too young for most of it, but later we'd play babysitter and "take care of her." 

Shortly after dusk, Tia Helen would arrive. When her husband Smitty was still alive, they brought -- yep -- the ultra-deluxe, giant box of fireworks. Smitty said it was for "jillie and the other kids," but everybody knew what was going on. Four Depression-era, WWII veterans had MADE IT, damnit, and they were by golly gonna drink beer and light explosive things on fire. I'm not sure all the women rolled their eyes, but it's a pretty safe bet. 

Somehow we made it through dinner, which was always good because the dads always made it. Some years, Katy or Aunt H brought potato salad, which they both did well. Other years, Mother made the potato salad, somehow managing to make it at once grainy/mushy AND tough. Daddy and Wayne, true denizens of the 1960s, put Worcestershire sauce into the hamburgers and went to their graves proclaiming it "the secret ingredient."  (I think the real secret was "sneak something with actual flavor past the picky eaters and never admit to anchovies or tamarind.") But the only part of dinner that really mattered was spitting watermelon seeds across the table and blaming poor, sweet Mike. Well, that and the ice cream. Our goal was to survive dinner and GET TO THE FIREWORKS.

We kids were assigned to clear the table, which always resulted in some lame joke about "doing the dishes." The paper plates and plastic forks WERE a nice break from our normal jobs of doing actual dishes, though. We dutifully put everything (including those yellow plastic corn-holder picks, to our mothers’ everlasting chagrin) in the big, galvanized metal cans with the detachable lids. We did not DELIBERATELY slam the lids for maximum decibel yield; that was an accident every time, I promise. One year, we discovered how to make the wicker paper-plate holders into some pretty serviceable Frisbees. The mothers clucked and the dads played Frisbee with us.

                   

While we cleaned up, the dads dragged the redwood picnic tables out front for the fireworks. In later years, Mike could move them faster, so he took over. It was a companionable era on a friendly street; the neighbors all did their fireworks in front so everybody could enjoy the show. Mother and Katy, both nurses, insisted on having multiple buckets of water nearby. They said it was in case there were a firework emergency with the kids, but no kid was ever allowed within 25 feet of the fireworks--or even a match--so we knew it was really some ancient ritual to propitiate nameless gods of fire. The only person who ever got burned was Mother, who was performing a close inspection of a green sparkler. 

AT LONNNNNNNNG LAST, it was fireworks time! The dads jockeyed for position, vying to be the first to light something and get the show on the road. Each kid was allowed to line a few things up in the order we preferred. We weren't sophisticated enough to get the smaller, more boring ones out of the way first--we wanted huge effects right now.

So on it went, on and on and on . . . one firework at a time . . . for hours. Sparklers were last on the agenda but the dads never told us why. Owing to the incredible generosity (and perilous excess) of our man-child fathers, each child had AT LEAST five boxes of sparklers. Never admitting we were tired, we sometimes tried to hurry the proceedings by lighting two or three at a time and writing our names in the night air. Mother and Katy soon shut that down, though, certain we’d die in a horrible fire if we held TWO of the “those damned things” at the same time. On good years, though, the moms would “get cold” and adjourn to the house, leaving us in the dubious care of our fathers, who thought multiple simultaneous sparklers were a great idea.

At last, it would end. Mona would be fast asleep on Shelly's lap, with the rest of us in a fast fade. Sometimes there would be an impromptu sleepover, with parents agreeing to pick up their offspring at the other house the next day.

They were good years, years I miss, years I’d happily revisit if I could experience them through that lens of innocent enthusiasm. I miss my parents, my Neenie, Katy, Wayne, Tia Helen and Smitty. I kind of miss Aunt H and Uncle R and their kids, even though we drifted and lost touch over the years. And while I may shed a tear or two at the passage of time (of life, really), I’m glad for what they did for us. I’m glad they shielded us as long as they could from what can sometimes be a harsh world. Thank you all—thank you for the fireworks, thank you for the celebrations, thank you for giving us times we could look back on and miss. (And Daddy, thank you for the cake cones. I still don't like those rock-hard sugar things.) God bless your souls.