Pets...

I have never been without pets for any length of time until I moved to Michigan -- a place that does Winter, thus requiring that said animal would live indoors 24/7.

We spent several years in student housing, which is nominally a 'no pet' environment. In practice this meant that people who had critters took great care that the dog, cat, bird, lizard, snake, turtle, etc., did not bother anyone else, and thus hazard landlord wrath.

Having been raised in the moderate climes of Southern California, I can't imagine being able to live year round with dogs or cats indoors with me. We always had yards and fields and woods for them to play in, and my cats clearly felt that their 'very important cat business' was mostly outdoors.

In Michigan, the only place I've lived that 'does' winter, having a cat or dog means a lot of extra work. When I was a kid, we had dogs who lived in the yard or barns. Ditto cats, although one barn cat moved into the house with us after her first meal. (It was leftover spaghetti.) Even she went outdoors to do her business, however, and trained us when to open said door or window for her.

Dogs, especially big dogs, need to be 'walked' several times a day in order to be healthy and to prevent them from eating your couch in frustrated boredom. Even if people have a yard, it won't be big enough and the weather clement enough for the dog to have ready access. And picking up dog poop is NOT my fav activity, TYVM!

Cats don't need to be walked -- and I've only known a handful that would even consider it -- but they do need exercise and a litter box. They need playtime and entertainment. And that litter box smells, even when 'cleaned.'

Part of my problem is exactly that: I'm extremely (according to my family) sensitive to odors. I can detect a rotting grape under a coffee table two houses down the street (also according to my family).

Dogs smell, even before they have discovered that lusciously decomposing roadkill with which to perfume themselves. Cats don't smell, if they aren't spraying, but shed fur a much as dogs do. And their litter smells. A lot.

Further, I have too much biology background to tolerate the idea of kissing my pets, especially on the mouth. Or of letting them slather me, like, while I'm eating. Part of that probably results from having a mother in the first group of nursing students who learned about germs, all those years ago... Why, she never let her kids barefoot until our teens, and then only at the beach!

But I love animals and have always had them in my life. The first ten years were spent on a farm with cows, rabbits (3000), turkeys, chickens, ducks, banties, geese, pigs, dogs, cats and guinea fowl.
Only the dogs and one cat were pets, but all had lives separate from the human habitation. Even when my family moved into town, we had chickens and dogs, cats and birds.
While in college, I even had a fling at fancy mice -- mostly culls from the bio department's attempt to breed a triple recessive, chocolate mouse. (They succeeded, but only my cat thought the results tasted anything like their name...)

Actually, I can't imagine living without other species also in my space. That said, I've reached the age when reality is forcing me to wonder if I could reliably care for them, whether plants, animals or -- ahem -- people. (Yes, teenagers are a separate species, but that's for another post. And besides, I don't have any of those anymore.)

See, here's the main problem: I'm obsessively committed to providing the very best care for my pets, and my definition of 'best' is rigorous. So I'm afraid I won't be able to live up to that standard, these days.

For instance, I personally make pet food from scratch. Presently, my pets consist of 7 rescued budgerigars (budgies) who are my Birdie Soap Opera. So, buying fresh seeds and making my own birdseed mix isn't too demanding. I also provide a variety of organic greens, veggies, wild grasses, maple and apple and willow branches, and birdie breads that I bake for them. They have flight time out of the cage every day. Some days for several hours, some for only a few minutes until somebirdy goes for the houseplants or the light boxes or the tall clock and everybirdy is then shooed back into the cage. They know the routine.

I used to prepare food for my cats, cooking it myself. Commercial pet foods, especially the cheap ones, rely on a lot of food stuffs that aren't healthy for cats. Marketing departments know, however, that most cats will eat just about anything if enough tuna juice is poured over it!

The fact that most inexpensive dry pet foods are corn based, and most of the protein is from 'animal byproducts' -- plus domestic cats are not by nature water drinkers but rely on their prey to supply both water and greens -- means that kibble just isn't a good choice. Those 'meat byproducts' are used to increase the protein content, even though the proteins are not exactly digestible or high quality, which is a bad enough thing. But worse, the source is not natural prey species... (Neither is a cow, of course, but muscle and organ beef is better than hooves and hide.)

Most shocking however: Did you ever wonder what happens to the unwanted dogs and cats that are killed every year by various animal control agencies? Yep, collected by companies who also collect dead and diseased cows, pigs, chickens, sheep and other protein sources. These 'meats' are processed and turned into 'meat by-products' that are used to make pet foods and animal feeds. That dead dairy cow is ultimately fed back to her sisters!

But that soapbox rant digresses from my current delemma...

I hesitate to even consider a dog because not only do I feel inadequately informed or inclined to train and socialize it, but also, I doubt that I even want to take it outside and walk it 3-5 times a day in winter weather. It might actually be good for me to get that much exercise, too, but please! And then to clean it up afterwards? And deal with the smell of wet dog?

No, probably won't happen as long as I am in Michigan.

Cats might, if I could provide them with a safe way to be a cat, indoors and out. I couldn't confine a cat to an apartment any more than I can clip my birds wings to make them flightless unbirds. But in this part of the world, it would be unsafe and uncomfortable to allow cats the run of the barns and woods and snow and coyotes. Besides which, cat doors would invite in a whole army of unwanted critters!

Both cats and dogs need mental stimulation, human interaction, and exercise. Dogs, especially, need friends of their own kind. Do I have multiple critters, or do I spend a good deal of time arranging play dates? I don't really want to encourage foraging in my cupboards, garbage cans and counters, but hunting for snacks is great entertainment and helps prevent obesity and depression, especially in cats.
There is another issue, as well. Providing a safe environment with plenty of food turns the reproductive switch to the ON position. Preventing that natural process results in unnatural stresses, not to mention expense.

There is a long list of reasons for labeling my current pets, the Birdy Soap Opera! "Twin Beaks, As the Bird Turns," has a cast driven to make baby birds, and I am preventing this from happening, so all that reproductive energy gets focused in other ways: chewing, squabbling over perches, chewing, searching for suitable nesting spaces outside the cage, arguing over those spots, chewing, competing for mates, chewing..........

At one point, I had almost an open door policy for unwanted Budgies, but I am no longer replacing those lost to old age and fatty liver disease. The Birdy Soap Opera cast is down to 7, all but one being 6 or 7 years old.

We are retired and have more time to spend with pets, or so I always believed it would be. But everything from chores to fun seems to take much longer than I'm sure I remember it used to when I was still young and virile..... So, I'm trying to decide if and what pet should be introduced to my current lifestyle when the Birdy Soap is finished.

Maybe I should just join the latest urban fad and get chickens......

(Which fad, BTW, is causing most humane societies great anxiety, as they have never been set up to deal with anything more than cats and dogs, usually. They don't have a place to house stray and unwanted chickens. Just as the aftermath of those cute Taco Bell commercials was a flood of unwanted and unmanageable chihuahuas, so they expect a similar flood of chickens!)

Let's see: do I want to get up and thaw frozen water dishes and feed hens at 6am, noon, and 6pm daily? Do I want to be washing chicken poop off my boots, gloves, eggs, etc.......Not to mention dealing with dogs, coyotes, squirrels, weasels, snakes, mice, rats, flies and other critters bent on having chicken (or chicken feed) for lunch?!

Nope. Guess not.

Maybe I'll cultivate friends with pets, and go enjoy them till I'm tired of it, and come home refreshed without having to do the chores.

Yeah. That's the ticket!

Much for which To Be Thankful

Sometimes poets get it, even when we normal mortals fail:

O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!

No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.

Responds, - as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
"Where hast thou stayed so long?"

~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, "Endymion"

No one but some heart responds unto his own...

And sometimes, as in my case, more than one. I am SO lucky!

Happy Thanksgiving, Dear Ones!

Three Quilts Complete...One to go...

Was clearing out my sewing stash and found a hand pieced quilt top that my mother had made from scraps of cotton left over from our toddler play clothes.

The rabbit feed used to come in cotton print sacking, about 1 yard/50 pound bag. She used the cloth to make shirts for my Dad and cute little outfits for my brother and I.

What better project than to divide it four ways and make heirloom quilted snuggles for my grandkids! Uh-huh, hold that thought, but then do a fast reality check and discover that I no longer HAVE any toddler-sized grandkids!

I inherited that quilt top and carried it around with me for 20 some years, always intending to do something with it; it's about number one on my Bucket List.

Now I know why she didn't ever finish it. The white pieces were from old recycled sheets, and are full of tiny rust stains and other marks that she probably couldn't see while she was piecing it all together.

She made the squares while doing night duty obstetrics, sitting in a darkened room, waiting for babies to be born.

However, such blemishes aren't an issue if what we want is something the kids can use right away and not have to worry about 'saving' a priceless antique. It's been saved too long as it is. In fact, some of the fabric is pretty fragile.

So, I carefully unpicked a seam down the middle, dividing the top into 2 lengths 4x7 squares each. Since they live in California, heavy batting and backing aren't necessary. I didn't want to buy more fabric, but none of the rest of my stuff seemed to go with this colorway. Fortunately, Target was having sale on their fleece blankets ($10!) so I bought a couple of those and used that for backing.

Then I tacked it all together using button quilting. :) Since the buttons can be sewed on by machine, it really saves the old fingers. That old cotton sheeting is really tough as leather!

All is not complete, however, since I have 3 grandchildren and only 2 quilts done, so for the baby (who, I have it on reliable authority, is now big enough to ride all the rides at Disneyland!) I needed to whip up another blanket.

I had some fleece remnants that were soft and bright, so cut them into squares with pinking shears, pieced them, and floated them onto a bigger piece of fleece, folding over the extra to make edge binding:

Then I tacked it together with button quilting, too. The buttons are vintage, as well as the fabrics, being from my button box, which contains inherited items from two grandmothers, mother, sister and mother-in-laws.

[Note how the buttons cleverly conceal any misaligned corners on this stretchy fabric that might be seen, otherwise...]

So, these three little quilts finished some projects on my bucket list, were fun to do, and will be perfect for tweens, because they can wrap up for movies on the floor with them, take them on sleep overs, or sit out on the deck in the sunshine to read a book. Well, in my household, at least, they would never be allowed to use 'good' blankets for those activities, LOL.

Meanwhile, I have finished the 9-point star patches begun in the mid 1970s and pieced the quilt top together.

It just needs a backing and filler, because it is for me and I live where WINTER happens... Maybe I'll go back to Target and see if their cotton sheet blankets are still on sale. If I float the top on woven cotton, with one of my washable wool blankets sandwiched between, and tack it firmly with lots of buttons........

Movin On -- Ur Doin It Rite!

A dear friend finally lost his battle with pancreatic cancer a few months back, and had kept us all up to date with a blog.

Now his widow continues to share with her own blog. It's very moving, includes pix and some poetry that are her way of dealing with the grieving process. Susanne is a writer, and has put into words most beautifully what I -- and many others, I'm sure -- have experienced.

This poem today really hit the spot for me, and works for so many loved ones gone.

Stay or Now Go?

I rock in your chair, and lay in our bed
I sleep with your shirt on, your jacket nearby
I wander the rooms, touching the dreams
Of a beautiful life we once led

I hold in my hands the things you once touched
And ask do they stay or now go?
I hold in my hands the intimate wear
And ask do they stay or now go?
I hold in my hands the books you once read
And ask do they stay or now go?

Some things are easy, a moment of thought
Some things are hard, and wake me at night
Some things are…just things
Some have layers of memory
Some mean more to others, and less to me
Are these things you? Are they me?
Perhaps yes and yet no
And I ask do they stay or now go?

When you live in my heart in permanent estate
Do the things even matter? Do they stay or now go?
Does some of you linger on all of these things
How much do I hold, do I care?
Some day they’ll be dust, irrelevant, gone
It’s your life that must matter, not things

And yet, there is comfort, though bittersweet tears
When I touch what you touched, and wear what you wore
They do bring you close, help me feel you nearby
So, I’ll choose at least some of the things to now keep

~ Susanne Mariella Alexander, October 14, 2009

Some Thoughts on Fashion

(see more funny dog pictures)

As you may well remember from how I embarrassed you all in your teen years, my sense of fashion is not always in line with the current trends...

What you may not know is that I actually tried a lot of that female stuff -- make up, shaving legs, hair curlers (in my case to straighten out the curl), wigs -- and it just wasn't for me. Mainly, it took way too much time morning and evening to deal with make up and hair styles that my hair just wasn't designed to be.

Alas, in the 1960's my hair was way too curly to tease and paste into beehive hair sculpture. Then in the 1970s, when long straight locks partly covering the face (ala Veronica Lake of old movies) were all the thing, I couldn't do that, either. And forget the smooth, gleaming pageboy style: mine was too curly!

On my twentieth birthday, I actually went into a department store to the make up counter and took all their advice and bought a bunch of stuff, which I tried diligently to use. But that only lasted about two weeks.

At that time, I was in college studying for a biology degree, which meant I had lots of 3 hr science labs, and was in class from 8am to 6pm four days a week. Plus half days Fridays and Saturdays. There was just no time in my schedule for regular meals, let alone make up! If I hadn't been living at home, where Mom fed me a decent dinner every night, I don't know what would have happened to me.

I know that you girls were sort of shocked about my not shaving my legs, but back when I would have learned how to do so, we had pretty lousy equipment, which meant hours of work every week, and pain -- plus, there was the issue that as a field biologist out in fields a lot, it pays to be able to feel what's crawling up your pants leg before it bites you! Without hair on your legs, you can't feel 'em.

Eventually, I looked up from my books and microscope long enough to notice women's lib and other liberating ideologies and realized that shaving body parts (which is very extreme these days, compared to back then) is sort of kinky.

I mean, the desired effect seems to be that a woman should look like she is prepubescent -- that is, like an 8 year old. Except that she must have big boobs, so the image would be lactating child. How weird is that?!

And it turns out that I have very sensitive skin, in addition to being too busy and too lazy to invest the hour or two every day to applying and removing all that paint. And by my 30's I was also allergic to most perfumes.

So, I have been spared much labor and expense, LOL.

I did, in my 40s, actually get my ears pierced. Most painful experience of my life, bar none (including childbirth, because that only lasts a few hours). It took six weeks before I was pain free, and the first couple nights I couldn't even sleep for the throbbing ears. I can't imagine what it would have been like if I had actually developed an infection! And to think, I was assured by everyone that it either didn't hurt at all, or would only sting a bit for a few days. Hah!

For about a dozen years I wore lovely ear rings, but once I quit working, I felt no need to put on jewelry, and mostly forgot about the holes in my ears. And even if I did want to start wearing jewelry again, there is the memory of all that pain to deter me from trying to reopen the holes...

The current fashion of punching holes in other parts of the body does not entice me. Too much clinical biology, I guess, to want to encourage infection (which I see very often in young people who either didn't do the piercing correctly, or fail to maintain a good standard of cleanliness).

The comedian George Carlin says it well (from his book, Brain Droppings): "...the piercing movement is off to a good start, and I like the idea behind it: self-esteem through self-mutilation. I've always said, when in doubt, punch a hole in yourself."

Perhaps good self-esteem and personal hygiene go hand in hand, and many of the folks most pierced show other evidence of very poor self-esteem...but I'm only going by what I see on the street. What is amazing to me is that this generation of teens has people in it who are into the clothing options from MY teen years! Hippy, flower child, goth, beatnik, etc. The only changes they seem to have made is to make it a bit more extreme than my parents would have allowed, and to add electronics.

But maybe kids in Ann Arbor are from wealthier families than my friends and I were, LOL. Not only did our parents have say over what we wore, they also refused to buy all the coolest fashions for us. We were deprived of expensive clothing and shoes that we would just outgrow in 3 months -- and, we were required to take care of the clothes we did have!

And grunge was not tolerated, unless we were painting the barn or cleaning out the basement. Your family had a community standing that must be maintained, and one inflexable rule was that children must not give anyone cause to think they or their family, were "shif'less and no 'count."

Perhaps things have changed. Then again, maybe not. Much of the muttering I do sounds a LOT like what I heard my parents and grandparents growling, back in the day...

Maybe I'm just caught up in the generation gap, just like my parents were, just like their parents, and their parents, and theirs...

Thoughts on the View from 'Over the Hill'

I've been putting together my will and testament lately. The will portion is done, essentially, being concerned with just the material things, and therefore pretty straightforward.

But I'm finding the testament to be challenging. I'm stressing over what have I to testify, after all these years I have lived, so far.

(Wipe those smiles off your faces! Your time is coming. Soon.)

It is never a comfortable thing to feel one's life might have been spent largely in vain -- but there you are. It has taken me this long to wonder about how successful I have been at whatever it was I figured life was about!

Not that the things I've done were the issue -- no matter that I thought they were -- though there are, of course, some that I regret. It is more that my motivations need to be examined. And -- perish the thought! -- may have been faulty...

Good deeds -- or bad ones, for that matter -- are colored by why we do them. At this point in my life, I'm questioning this issue much more than ever before.

Never let it be said that I am a quick study...
Perhaps menopause provides (forces?!) time for reflection. It's very hard on the ego to realize that all that deep thinking I thought I was doing, wasn't. That maybe I wasn't such hot stuff as I believed? (Or worse, that everybody else knew it before I did!)

"Time makes all men poets," some famous person, whose name escapes me, said. If poets are people who help the rest of us see what hardly anyone else had noticed (or admitted to), then I can see the pundit's point. Because I've had lots of time recently, since I can no longer fill my days doing a million things at once. This can be a major problem for someone who has evidently defined herself by what she was doing...

The truth is that I have never been much for poetry. Stuff never made any sense to me.

Until lately?

Not that I have developed 'eyes to see,' or anything so profound as that -- but lately some poets seem to be speaking to me directly. "Killing me softly, with his song," to quote Joanie Mitchell.

Baha'u'llah, 19th century Prophet of the Baha'i Faith, said that, "True loss is for a man to live his life in ignorance of his true self."

Looking back, it seems to me that I have spent a good deal of time and energy trying NOT to see my true self. Which is very hard on the ego, since I think -- thought -- I was so well developed and knowledgeable...

But denial takes energy. And even for redheaded supermoms, the energy eventually wanes... "We are not pleased," to quote queen Victoria. (Wasn't she also a redhead??)

True, I've spent much time and energy trying to be good -- or, at least, do good -- but looking back forces me to wonder at my reasons. And whether those reasons are worthy. Not always a very comfortable contemplation.

Why is it important to me that I do good, for instance? Well, on those occasions, of course, when I have managed it!

Did a good deed happen as the natural consequence of being good? Or because I wanted the world (and specific people) to think me good?

Was my intent to please God -- or some more temporal authority -- or did I actually have loftier goals? (And does it matter? I mean, this self contemplation thing might just be avoiding the chores this morning...)

Maybe not even saints are completely free to be good for goodness' sake. Maybe we are all still being and doing good mostly to please someone else. Certainly, that is how as children we learn to be and do everything. What does a two year old know of tooth decay and street traffic and how disorder in one's life causes depression?? They have parents for that.

No, the desire to please, the need to be loved, may eventually transmute into habits that are good and good for us -- at least as parents we hope this for our kids. But it looks to me that as adults, much of what we do may still be based on old habits of thinking and doing. We can hope these are beneficial, but we haven't actually thought them out.

How much of that basis is still just hoping that our parents will love us? Or, for the religious, that God will love us? Having been raised by humans does pretty well train us that to be loved, we must be "good," however that is locally defined.

True religion teaches that we are already loved by our Creator, and the purpose of being good is found elsewhere. (False religion teaches us that we have to do things to please God and receive the reward of being loved.)

So, if we are loved, in all our imperfections, then why worry about being/doing better?

Maybe because we remember -- and grow -- better if we discover truth for ourselves? From my own experience, that is certainly true! I never paid much attention to 'The Oldies' giving me advice...I mean, they were OLD!

And should I expect you, my children, to listen to me? Even if I put it in writing that you will have to read at least once, after I am gone from this temporal life.

I love you all --
the one I birthed,














those acquired by marriage,











the fosters, and the many others in looser arrangements --

























all those who have come to me over the course of my life.

I want you to have lofty goals, to succeed, to be healthy and happy. There are things I managed to learn (mostly the hard way) -- stuff about how it works, stuff that I can see and that maybe you don't -- that I'd like to share.

The question I now have is about how much I can guide, how much power I might have to help or dissuade from errors, or even to point out road signs. Not only where I might prevent some pain --

But also whether prevention is either necessary or good. It is a mystery.

What if, like me, people have to fall in order to believe the advice to watch where they are stepping?


















There! See how easy it is for me to get off topic? So much less threatening to worry about someone else than to examine myself further.

Nope. This blog is supposed to be about me and about helping me see where I am right now (which requires some looking back to see where I've been).

That I might help or entertain others in the process is not supposed to be the focus.

But how many of my posts reflect "me" avoidance? Surfing the Web for neat stuff is more fun! Further, sharing current events and family history is probably way more interesting to you kids than my ruminations about self discovery.

I am hoping, however, that some of you must surely be more self aware than I have been all of my life. Perhaps my experience will save you some time...

Or maybe only give you some insight into why I might have done some of those things you thought peculiar!

Admit it! There have been times when you wondered what I could have been thinking.
And I don't mean just when you were teens and found your parents deeply embarrassing.

(Although, looking at the picture albums, I really did justify that sometimes... Who was that woman, anyway?! Like me and the friendly (library) gopher snake here...or me and mini skirts there.)

That's what I need to figure out in order to finish my will and testament. The testament being where one gets to say a bunch of things nobody wanted to listen to while one was alive...LOL.

A testament is a way of bridging generations, of making certain that nothing is left unsaid. Like explaining one's successes and failures, one's goals and the progress made on them. Being sure to tell loved ones that they are loved, were always loved, (or not) and specifically why.

Especially why. I was so busy surviving day to day with a dying husband and an unfinished house and two businesses and 5 kids under 16, that I missed a lot of your teens. I didn't tell each one of you just why you are so special, and how proud I am of you.

Or what a bounty it was to have you in my life.

Before I can write a successful testament, I need to go back and really look at that life. Explaining to you all is helping me to figure it out.

You can skip the ramblings and just look at the pix if you want.

Moving On...

I left my house in 1995, when I moved to the Midwest. Of course, I thought I'd be back soon...

My son, you are now living in that house ... but it's not the house I remember so fondly. It's not MY house any longer.

I loved my little house! I loved the yard and the shake roof and the flower-covered mound to the west, and the vacant lot next door.



I loved that beautiful old pine tree in the unpaved Women's Club parking lot behind -- that pine which dates from my Uncle James' first job at age 15. He was hired by the founder of the town to water the acres of Cambria pines planted on the Heights for windbreaks against the blowing sand...








I loved the view of the Rock and the Bay down the hill, too. And the way the setting sun would turn the office walls softly orange and rosy in summer, and the way I could open the doors to the green house and heat up the house on a sunny winter day.

Most of all, I loved the people who lived in that house with me.

But most all those things I loved are no longer there (and neither am I).

The view is blocked by the condos across the street, the empty lot is no more. Even the shakes are gone, with the freeway daisys and the Hyssop crabapple at the office door, and the raspberries on the kitchen fence.

Neighborhood cats may still come to play in the yard, but I bet the gophers are all gone. The snails? Well, I think I can live without them!

And, not least, the people I loved then are not the center of my life anymore.

Some famous writer claimed, "You can't go home again"...and is right. Not that home, at least.

My little house in Morro is no more. It can't ever be what I remember again. But it is NOT dead and gone.

It needs a new life, a face lift, a remodel. It's time to let it move on and grow, not sit there sadly remembering a past which can't be rebuilt -- even if we could remember the way it really was!

Add a bedroom, or two -- redo the kitchen and baths. Put down new flooring or fence the yard for the kids. Make this a new home.

Not the home it used to be, not my home, but the home it can become.

Your place.

Not mine.

"To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition."
-- Samuel Johnson

Happy Thanksgiving!

I love Thanksgiving best of the secular holidays...

This was the day I remember most from my childhood, because Thanksgiving dinner was the only time -- apart from funerals -- that my mother's extended family celebrated together. For my brother and I, isolated as we were until we moved into town proper, it was a time to play with other children, our cousins.

When I was very small, the family dinner was held in Nana's little house that she shared with my mother's youngest sister, Noma. Noma worked as a bookkeeper to support them both, and never married. She was a career woman long before that was acceptable behavior, unless, of course, one lived with one's mother... But even then, there was some talk. Small town.

As my three cousins, my brother and I grew larger -- and Uncle Nedum retired and brought my mother's eldest sister Ethel back to the area -- the meal had to be served outside in the garage in order to fit us all around the table.

The garage was a wooden shed with no windows, so the doors would have to be propped open to supplement the weak bulb hanging by a string overhead. Old carpets were spread on the dirt floor, and the dining table and two card tables brought out.

With chairs for all of us, there was literally no room for anyone to get up once they sat down! We kids could not, therefore, leave the table early and play tag out in the yard. Just as well, because we'd have kicked up dust from the sandy soil.

By the time I was about 10, there would be around the table: Nana, Noma, Mother & Dad and my brother Aaron & I, Mother's sister Ethel and her husband Nedum, Mother's elder brother Cecil and his wife Lily, Mother's younger brother James and his wife Alma and their three children - Malene, Bolivar & Bud.

There is a funny story about how Bud got his name, but I wouldn't bet on its accuracy, given the family penchant for practical joking. My Uncle James was cantankerous and his wife long-suffering, according to his female siblings. I remember him as being very fond of teasing them in ways that they always seemed to fall for.

So when Alma was pregnant with the third child and asked him what name he liked for this one, he is reported to have growled ungraciously, "Just call 'em Bud, for all I care!" And so she did.

I cannot personally vouch for the truth of this story, since cousin Bud is only about 2 years younger than I. However, since James and Alma were married for well over 50 years before she died -- without having committed the homicide other ladies in the family seemed to feel might be justified -- I'll assume they had an understanding not shared by his siblings.

Besides, this is exactly the sort of outrageous story that Uncle James would tell in company, just to tease his mother and sisters!

These get togethers were held at Nana's house, a tiny asphalt shingled cottage sitting on one corner of what had been the original family holding -- one whole city block. When Grampa died in his early 40s and left her with 5 kids and no income, Nana gradually sold off parcels until only the last corner remained.

She made ends meet by cooking for the fishermen, and anyone else in need of good home cooking, at 25 cents a meal. My mother told stories of serving supper (dinner was midday on weekends), and washing up as fast as possible so they could all go over to the theater across the street for Saturday nights dances.

For the young people, these dances would go until about dawn, when she and her sisters would rush home to cook and serve breakfast. After cleaning up from that, Mother would often take a long walk on the beach with a girl friend or her sister Noma -- since it was Sunday, a day of rest. Often this little walk would stretch from Morro Rock up to the Standard Oil pier in Cayucos...about six miles, not counting that it was a good half mile to the Rock from Nana's house.

Of course, the food holds center stage in my memories, but playing tag and hide and go seek with my cousins was important, too. Nowadays, I think listening to the grownups talk about their families and share stories from the past is most interesting.

Those stories were always exciting to me, since we kids were never told anything children didn't need to know...and then when we were adults, nobody explained anything because they assumed we knew, I guess. It can be very frustrating for us nosies who thrive on family minutia, especially since there is no one left to ask!

Sometimes the stories were pretty funny. Uncle Frank stories were my favorite. I'll write about him tomorrow...

Meanwhile, here is a family portrait taken with the first 4 of 7 children:
Left to right: Cecil, Mary, Dorothy, Ethel, Charles, Helen. James, Noma and Charles Castle were born after this picture was taken. Charles Castle died as a toddler, and Dorothy (my mother) always wondered what he died of, as no autopsy was done. She thought that was one of the reasons she went into medicine.

Another may have been that Helen, with whom she was very close, died of Spanish flu in early 1919. Everyone got sick, except my mother, who was about 13, and she took care of them all. Her father never regained full vitality, and died a couple years later of 'heart failure.'

There is a page on line with some family photos...mostly of Morro Bay, with a brief outline of the family line. It's missing some information I know I have somewhere. Marie McKennon did an extensive search on the Stocking side, back in the 1950s, 3 pages single spaced type! According to her notes, Stockings came to this country from England on the next boat after the Mayflower! Thereafter, the males seemed to alternate between army and church.

To see some more great old photos of Morro Bay...