From Tom Sawyer to MGCC

Last week we took Tehya, Paeton and Natalie to see a local theatre group perform Tom Sawyer.  In it there was a scene I had to pay attention to because of something that has puzzled me a bit. It has to do with a thought in the preface of our original cookbook.  Do you read prefaces? There is a line where Lovella refers to the beginning of her time as a blogger and seeing "within her readership an opportunity to whitewash her fence by inviting readers to share their favorite recipes."

I obviously skimmed Mark Twain's book when I had to read it way back when and a lot of it went over my head. Dealing with the slang and sarcasm as a new Canadian was a bit of a challenge. 

So, today . . . just for fun let me bring back that scene for you with a few chosen excerpts from the story.

 

"Saturday morning was come, and all the summer world was bright and fresh, and brimming with life."  

"Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high . . ."

A friend named Ben came skipping by and a conversation began . . .

“Say – I’m going in a-swimming, I am. Don’t you wish you could? But of course you’d druther work – wouldn’t you? Course you would!”

Tom contemplated the boy a bit, and said:

“What do you call work?”

“Why, ain’t that work?”

Tom resumed his whitewashing, and answered carelessly:

“Well, maybe it is, and maybe it ain’t. All I know, is, it suits Tom Sawyer.”

“Oh come, now, you don’t mean to let on that you like it?”

The brush continued to move.

“Like it? Well, I don’t see why I oughtn’t to like it. Does a boy get a chance to whitewash a fence every day?”

Tom swept his brush daintily back and forth – stepped back to note the effect – added a touch here and there – criticised the effect again – Ben watching every move and getting more and more interested, more and more absorbed. Presently he said:

“Say, Tom, let me whitewash a little.”

Tom considered, was about to consent; but he altered his mind:

“No – no – I reckon it wouldn’t hardly do, Ben. You see, Aunt Polly’s awful particular about this fence – right here on the street, you know – but if it was the back fence I wouldn’t mind and she wouldn’t. Yes, she’s awful particular about this fence; it’s got to be done very careful; I reckon there ain’t one boy in a thousand, maybe two thousand, that can do it the way it’s got to be done.”

As the story goes, Ben begged his way to proving that he could paint the fence and . . .

"the retired artist sat on a barrel in the shade close by, dangled his legs, munched his apple, and planned the slaughter of more innocents. There was no lack of material; boys happened along every little while; they came to jeer, but remained to whitewash. By the time Ben was fagged out, Tom had traded the next chance to Billy Fisher for a kite, in good repair; and when he played out, Johnny Miller bought in for a dead rat and a string to swing it with – and so on, and so on, hour after hour. And when the middle of the afternoon came, from being a poor poverty-stricken boy in the morning, Tom was literally rolling in wealth."

The grands thought it was a pretty cool trick, but I have to say that I still do not feel tricked into joining Lovella in whitewashing her fence . . . it's been work, but it's been rewarding for me too!

She Makes me Smile

 

While at the airport on Saturday morning I noticed Judy, a long time friendly acquaintance, sitting across the way. We attended the same church when we were raising kids and our paths have crossed in numerous ways.

Sitting down beside her, she said she had a story for me. As part time librarian at the school some of my grandchildren attend, she has gotten to know them a little. Around Remembrance Day she was telling the Grade Two class about the World Wars, her father's work in the war and how he, like many Mennonites chose alternate service during that time. She is so good with kids and I'm sure she had some unique things to tell them.

What made me smile is what happened after she was done her story time in the library. She told me that Natalie had quietly come up to her and said, "My Mimi is a Mennonite." Judy, sensing it had taken a heart filled with pride to overcome her shy nature, exclaimed, "Well, yes! I know your Mimi! And I know your Mommy as well!"  I can just imagine how uniquely special Natalie must have felt!

I've been noticing that Natalie's reference point to anything Mennonite  is "mennonitegirlscancook" which encircles  her Mimi and friends - whom she is so very proud of! It's how she was introduced to the term, which sounds more like mennite when she says it, but in years to come, I hope to tell her more about her roots and how her great-grandparents had to leave Russia because they were not allowed to worship God there. How they moved together with many others and started with nothing in a new country, continuing to teach their children to love God and to love others as themselves.

One day she will find out that her Mimi is not as famous as she once thought, but I hope that in learning about her heritage, she will learn more about the love and faithfulness of God and accept it as her own.
 

To Calgary and Back

Early Saturday morning, while flying high above the Rockies,
 the crack of dawn
was defined before my eyes.

 

 

 

I watched in awe as night gave birth to day . . .

to see the heavens burst forth with color

above grand mountain peaks lined up below.

I knew I'd been given a gift . . .

It was a morning filled with promise,
sitting on the right side with a window view.
For my H these one day trips have become somewhat part of life
as he goes about his business,
so when the invitation to attend a signing in Calgary came along
I knew that I could tag along this once.

 

The store, with its beautiful décor and crafts from around the world,
 was ready for Christmas shoppers.

 

The weather was cold, but the welcome was warm.

 

Lovella, Marg and I -
we all ended up being able to introduce someone we knew to each other. . .
but I think Marg had us beat by a long shot with all of her Calgary cousins.
After the signing, Marg continued on with her relatives
while Lovella and I met up with our beloveds and spent some time at the mall . . .
after which we got taken back to the airport.
Our plane ascended into the night sky at about 8:25 Calgary time
and touched down at 8:30 Abbotsford time.
It all happened in one day.
Now that is the way to travel!

  

The Chaco in Paraguay

Visiting my H's home introduced our kids to a whole different landscape and way of life. 

But they were tough.

New foods, crowded quarters, a strange language and blasted with mosquito bites . . .

we hardly heard them complain.

 



Their eyes saw adventure and fun.



I still marvel at how they played  in the dirt with their second cousins . . . seems a common language was not needed when making mud pies or playing hide and seek.



We visited my H's home but no one was there to open the door for us.
He was surprised how small it had become.



Clay ovens were not in use any more, but left as a reminder of our parent's pioneering days.



One of the cousins we visited had a peanut farm and here they are ready to send off a shipment.


 

Most homes were surrounded by verandas to keep out the blazing sun and provide a cool place to visit. It really was an experience of a lifetime and may partly explain why our kids have the travel bug in them. We blame ourselves . . . with a smile, of course.

 

 

A Childhood Home Revisited

In my recent story telling post, I made mention of going back to Brazil and visiting my home on the outskirts of Curitiba. This photo was taken not long before we left for Canada.  I'm probably almost ten years old. I was in Grade one when my dad drew up the plans for this house.  There were four bedrooms all in a row along the far side. My Omi lived with us and she used the bedroom beside the one we as sisters shared. Behind the front veranda was the living room, then the dining room and the kitchen in the back.

I remember helping my mom as she crouched in the front yard, planting each blade of grass as an

individual plant that later spread and intertwined with the rest as it grew. My dad laid the multicolored hardwood floor, inlaid with diamond shaped wood pieces.

The driveway seemed steep when going down on our bikes. The backyard had a vegetable garden and some young fruit trees. The street was not paved, filled with potholes and sometimes taken over by the neighbor's cows.

On the photo we are wearing our school uniforms. I loved the shoes I'm wearing there. I guess it was not often that my request for a certain style was granted, so this one I remember.

 

When we went back to visit nearly twenty one years later, Julene was almost ten. The people who lived there were still the second owners. They remembered my parents and were happy to show us around. It was a surreal experience of two seasons in my life . . . that of childhood and motherhood . . . virtually colliding and one I certainly would never have imagined to be possible.

In my mind (and blog) I can take our eleven-year-old granddaughter there now . . . and the brevity of life becomes ever more clear. I heard a verse quoted last night that struck a chord with this thought.

 "Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." Psalm 90:2

The (Brady) Toews/Janzen Bunch Anniversary

 

While the guys got the fire going in the fire pit to grill the tenderloins, we set the table. Then we waited. It's been just over two years since my mom married my childhood friend's dad, whom I was taught to call uncle Abe. At that time we addressed adults by Mr. or Mrs. unless they happened to be very good family friends . . . then we could call them uncle and aunt. For years our families got together on many a weekend and I was always happy when it was our turn to go to their house. When our parents were in their forties, they purchased some shared property in Mission on a lakefront. The Toews family built a house while our family renovated part of the horse barn.

Over the years, our families grew . . . and while we kids grew apart and waved across the yard to each other, our parents kept up a close friendship. Within the past seven years, both families went through sad times as we each grieved our own loss of a parent, but you know how this story ends. It was hard not to continue such a long standing friendship.

 

This weekend we had dinner at the Lakehouse (old horse barn) as "siblings" in honor of our parents. With a few missing, we were eleven around the table. I don't know for whom it would have felt more surreal - for us for our parents.

After a lot of story telling over dinner, Monika and Linda brought out deserts.

 

I could tell Abe was excited about Linda's cheesecake. Would I have known it was one of his favorites? It looks like he's thinking his "baker" wife just has to try this!

It was delicious!

As were the mini black forests and the stories that kept us laughing! Oh the memories we share and the fun it is to see them in retrospect with added ones to tell! In the busyness of life it's not always easy to connect, but having done so . . . we plan to do this again. It's good to keep in touch!

Finding our Roots

 

 

I'm not a candy lover but, as I was packaging up some little treats for the grands recently, I surprised myself when I popped one of these little jelly candy into my mouth. There was something about them . . . my taste buds, infused with sugared orange juices, connected to a childhood memory of my grandma (Omi) handing out her favorite jelly candies, shaped like orange segments. Do they still make those? These little pumpkins tasted just like them and I loved them for the memory.

When our kids were young, we took them on a trip to visit our childhood homes. It was a unique opportunity given to us through a business promotion to visit a big city in Brazil, and we asked if we could make our own arrangements. Instead of spending money on hotels and tours, we were able to go as a family and stay in the homes of our relatives. This gave us the opportunity to visit my home in Brazil as well as my H's hometown in Chaco, Paraguay. As we walked into the door of his cousin's home, a flood of unexpected emotions came over him. The scent in the home and the pattern of the floor tiles brought about memories he had long tucked away and forgotten about, bringing tears to his eyes.

What is it about taste, scent and visual designs that can evoke such long lost memories? Stories that beg to be told because they are part of the pattern of who we are as individuals, extending into who we are as a family. Whatever the story, be it funny, sad, a lesson in dealing with hard times or even learning about good coming out of bad - are stories that build  into the foundation of how our children will deal with experiences today.  I think of Joseph in the Bible, meeting up with his brothers and - continuing the story of what happened to him after they sold him into slavery - he goes on to tell them, "What you meant for evil, God meant for good."

Parents who create opportunities for such a time around a dinner table, while driving in the car or waiting at the dentist's office, have the opportunity to let their kids know they are not alone in learning to deal with life's ups and downs. Our views in retrospect can help them learn that things are not always as they seem and give them hope.

When we get together with extended family for our celebrations, we give our children a sense of belonging and shared identity. Sometimes there is a merging of cultures and that, in itself, can be a good learning time about who we are. With changing times, it may be that story telling has faded into the background, but I'd like to hope for more opportunities to let shared memories bring laughter, help heal misunderstandings and bring about a sense of being a part of a family that is special in its own way. Look about for things that make it so . . . grandparents with their broken English, the baby blanket passed down to the third generation, the recent wedding photos of a cousin wearing her mom's dress, the new baby named after great-grandma, the step-cousin who is ever so quiet, German carols, the stuffing that can't change, peppermint cookies . . . it may just be any one of these that will one day trigger an emotion - a little tear - taking you back and filling you with thankfulness.

Thoughts on the benefits of story telling were inspired by a wonderful article by Frances Lefkowitz in the December issue of Good Housekeeping.


Fall Finale

While most trees are bare by now, our glowing Queen Elizabeth maple held off,
it's bottom branches flickering in the sun and welcoming us home
with one final glimpse of fall's fading glory.
My H got busy cutting back ferns and other perennials
filling the beds and underbrush under fallen leaves.
 I joined him for a bit to hold bags and took in some clippings to enjoy inside.

After getting groceries, doing laundry and baking (just because I could hardly wait)
 I enjoyed the glow of candle light
while looking through a magazine, introducing the next season.

Grandkids dropping by with hugs,
 jars of soup left in the fridge by a mom who still "waits up" for us,
yellow leaves, candles and cinnamon buns . . .
how could I have been sad to have our vacation come to an end?

One Light Still Shines

Thoughts about building my house on a rock resurfaced while I read the story of the Amish school house shooting from Charlie Robert's widow's perspective in the novel, One Light Still Shines.

Years now after the shooting, Marie Roberts Monville writes about her experience, beginning with her husband's suicidal call that shattered her beloved community and her life. Never having heard or even thought much about her part of the story, my heart has been greatly touched too see how God's love pierced the darkness in the midst of such evil. Mother of three young children, she writes, "At that moment everything I knew about my life changed . . . and I was faced with a choice - a crisis of belief." For Marie this crucial moment defined whether she would trust what she had always believed in to be true or succumb to the disaster threatening her own will to live.

It was in her decision to take her most terrible moment to "walk on water," trusting that God would meet her in the midst of this storm, that my eyes beheld the kind of foundation her house was built on. In this pivotal moment, even before knowing all of the details, Marie called out to God in the way she always had before, and she received a supernatural boldness she had never known. I cannot imagine the result of her life, had her relationship with God not been one in which He was the first One on the scene in any situation.

She writes, "I had no idea what was unfolding with Charlie, but in a moment of sacred stillness as the world raged around me, I vowed this would not be the day that my children looked back on in the belief that it had destroyed their lives . . . God filled me with an absolute assurance that we were going to be victorious."

The story of Marie Roberts Monville is one that does not take away the darkness of evil but one in which God shines a beacon of light into the darkness, giving hope and a future for any situation. God's whispers of His presence challenge us to look for what He will do. They are whispers I do not want to tune out as I come to grips with the fact that expectancy is a sign of faith, one that pleases our heavenly Father who loves to give good gifts.

The gifts of grace and forgiveness that this story encompass are far beyond what most of us could ever imagine. A true testimony of God's redemptive work in our sin-stained world and one of the best love stories I have read. Read it with a box of tissues beside you.

The Wise Man

 

Driving past this house last week, I was reminded of a song that we learned in Sunday School as children. Simple words about a wise man and a foolish man. Did we realize the lesson in those words?

As I'm reading my way through a little devotional, Jesus Calling, I was struck with a sentence proclaiming the same truth in another way, "Many people are so preoccupied with future plans . . . that they fail to see the choices they need to make today."

The correlation between Sarah Young's words and the song I was singing reminded me that the choices I make today are forming the foundation for how my house will stand or fall when the storms come. A sobering truth.

For in the day of trouble He will keep me safe in His dwelling; He will hide me in the shelter of His tabernacle and set me high upon a rock." Psalm 27:5

On the Lykken Trail

 

 

 

 

The climb was a bit steep for our prairie company but, in the end, so worth it!
Another memory stored up for us all.

In the Desert

Following several phone calls and/or emails with our Manitoba cousins, trying to find a suitable week for them to come for a visit, it finally came out that they would like to meet up on a vacation somewhere.

  

 So it was decided that we would introduce them to our favorite get-a-way place in California.

Packing up and going away for a bit has been a good thing.  

Alvina is more than a cousin-in-law to me.

 She is endearing, fun loving and one from whom I can learn a lot!

I have observed how she has chosen joy in spite of numerous hardships

 she has experienced in her life -

 a friend who finds ways to encourage 

and lives like a day without laughter is a waste.

 

We've had fun showing them around.

One day we drove out to Joshua Tree Park,

 
a perfect setting for a picnic

and an awe inspiring place.

At times the pathway led us through dusty, sandy areas and
 other times through sacred looking rock formations

always ready to show forth the beauty of life

even in a desolate looking spot.

We wanted to show them around and in so doing
 I ended up looking and finding beauty in the desert.