garden & potato patch

To one side of our house was a garden. There is nothing like home grown tomatoes, corn on the cob, cucumbers, and peas. My dad says there’s nothing like West Virginia homegrown vegetables. He left here when he was sixteen and has traveled all over the United States but has yet to find a tomato like the ones his dad raised. The first several rows of our garden were strawberries. They were small and full of holes, but were the best strawberries in the world to me. Ruth made great strawberry pies and a lot of people wanted her glaze recipe. She said the secret was to add just a couple drops of oil to the glaze to improve the consistency.

Just beyond the garden was our potato patch. There has to be Irish blood somewhere in this family. When I got older and started visiting other people, I couldn’t believe they could serve a meal without potatoes. And was even more shocked that other people have never even tasted a raw potato! We had potatoes at almost every meal (except when pasta was our main dish).

The Stove Top Stuffing commercials used to drive us crazy. “Have Stove Top Stuffing instead of potatoes.” Instead of potatoes!? We were incredulous. Why not with potatoes? I’m sure others would have laughed at our holiday spreads. We often had mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes or yams, and potato salad too. Sometimes we even had Stove Top Stuffing with all those potatoes.

Recently I was discussing food with my Grandma and I mentioned that I thought peas were my favorite vegetable. She got the strangest look and said, “What about potatoes?”
I said, “Grandma, potatoes are my favorite food! They are in a class all by themselves and cannot be considered with mere vegetables.”

I loved helping during hoeing time in the potato patch. I rarely got to hoe because I wasn’t careful enough. I often swung the hoe with too much force and would plant it deeply into a potato damaging it. Sometimes I cut them clean in two. So my hoeing days were short lived. But I was allowed to pick them up and carry them to the wagon after Jack uncovered a pile of them. I loved the smell of the dirt and potatoes.

After the potatoes were dug, we took them to the back yard water pump—we called it a spigot. We washed the potatoes carefully and dried them. Ruth explained that we couldn’t let the sun dry them because they would get sunburned and sunburn on a potato is poison to little bellies. After drying them, we sorted them. Any that had damage were taken straight into the house to be used first. The rest we carried down into the cellar under Jack’s tool shed. There they were kept cool and out of the sun’s damaging rays.

The door into the cellar was in the floor of the shed. I hated going completely into the cellar. I was the one who handed the potatoes down into the cellar. Ruth often asked me to go get potatoes for our next meal. I would take David with me and make him stand on the stairs with his head above the door so nobody would shut it accidentally. When he got to the age that I thought he might try to shut it on me as a joke, we changed roles. I made him go into the cellar while I stood guard.

Thurs 3/17/2005

HAPPY ST PATRICK'S DAY!

What a week. Howard came to visit on Sunday. We haven't seen each other since the week of Valentine's Day! Ugh, what a horrible month it was.

He got here Sunday evening and went to church with me. A Catholic in a Baptist Church!! Everyone survived. LOL. Monday we went to Parkersburg to visit Martha and Becky at WVUP. We had planned on going to dinner and a movie. We went to the mall and ate in the food court. (I had Chik-fil-A and he had Burger King.) Then we went to check on the movie times. We would have to wait 2 hours! Sooo...

We decided to leave Parkersburg and drive towards Indianapolis to visit his mom. We decided we'd drive an hour or two then stop and see a movie then stay all night. We were aiming for Columbus. Along the way we decided to skip the movie. We drove a little past Dayton and got a hotel. We got up the next morning and ate at the Waffle House. We drove on to his mom's house in Indianapolis.

We stayed with her until Wednesday afternoon. It was quite an emotional time for Howard. His mom is under Hospice care. Say a prayer for her and for him. And for his brother too.

Wednesday afternoon we left Indianapolis. We drove to Dayton and visited my Uncle Jr. and Aunt Hazel. It was really good to see them, but they are not doing very well healthwise. I need to get back out there soon.

We made it all the way back home on Wednesday.

Thursday turned my week around. I had a very good Thursday. Howard and I went to my Writer's Group meeting. The facilitator, Joan, asked if anyone had any readings. I did not (for a change!). Others read then Joan said, "Well, I brought something to read this week. I don't usually write fiction, but Suzie has been my inspiration. She inspired me to write."

WOW!! I felt soooooo good about that!! And what she wrote was very good! I have had this dopey grin on my face since then!

THEN...

After the meeting I went to the Ladie's room and ran into Toni there. Somehow we got to talking about stand up comedy and she said she'd like to try it. I told her I had done it and it was a lot of fun. So she got really excited and started talking about all these places we could try to get to let us do it. She, Joan, Howard, and I went to a cafe on Main Street (Red Parrot, or something like that) to talk to the owner about doing it there. She sometimes has musicians so we wondered if she'd be interested in allowing our group to do readings or comedy.

They kind of put me on the spot and asked me to do some comedy there. I was very nervous but came up with a few jokes. They thought it was pretty good and the owner said she'd think aobut it. But Toni wants to do the show next month! I don't know if that's enough time for me to come up with a routine. Anyway, Joan and Toni went into the other room to play the poker machines. Then the owner of the cafe...what was her name??? She looked at me and said, "You really have some talent there. You need to persue this comedy thing. I look forward to having you here. Good luck!"

:) I feel really really good about this.

But on the downside...during that meeting, Howard got a phone call from his ex wife. He knew his daughter had stones in her neck/throat (like gall stones or kidney stones, but in her neck). His ex was calling to tell him that their daughter needed surgery and it was scheduled for the day after Easter. Not a good week for him! :(

After that, Howard and I went to dinner at the Golden Corral (sp?) across the river. Then I wanted to drive him across Route 2. But we had made plans to be at Pat's by 7. We had 45 mins. We started out Rt 2. I stopped to get gas. $2.08!! And that's a GOOD price. It's $2.25 in most places. We went out Rt 2 to Plain Valley Rd. We went across to Sand Hill. I had to check my msgs before going to Pat's. I had left a msg to make plans to visit and told them to let me know via the phone. There were no msgs!! I picked up the phone to call and realized my computer was still online! We had left it online to finish downloading something. But I really thought it would kick offline when it was done. So Connie had tried to call, but couldn't get through! Yes, it was ok to come over and visit.

We had a really nice visit with them.

Today we met Mom and Grandma for lunch at the Corner Cafe. After that Howard wanted to go to the dam. We went, but couldn't get very close to it. So he asked if we could get closer on the Ohio side. I didn't know, but told him we'd find out. We drove to Ravenswood and crossed the river. Then went down Rt 124 to the dam. There is fishing access to the river on the south side of the dam. We walked down and watched the water for a little bit.

Then we drove back to Butch's and Howard fixed mac n cheese. The three of us visited for a while then Howard left to go home. He should be home any second now! I can't wait to chat with him. And I will not wait another month to see him!!!!!!!

US 33

Just beyond the railroad tracks was a highway. At the time, it was US Route 33. Mom used to sit on the porch swing with me and drink sweet iced tea and watch the traffic go by. Sometimes she would wonder out loud if they were locals or travelers. We knew most of the locals’ cars and most locals beeped their horns as they passed. Those cars we didn’t recognize and didn’t beep must have been the travelers. Mom would look at me and say, “That highway right there will take you anywhere you want to go Suzie. If you ever leave here that’s the road you’ll take. But you’ll come back some day on that same road.

I knew that the road went lots of places. I could get to Mt. Alto or New Haven on that road. It’s also the road we came in on from Illinois when we moved here. And it was the road I would watch patiently at the end of the school year waiting for my dad to come and get me.
Turns out Mom was right about it being the highway I took when I left town. And, although it was no longer US33, it was the same stretch of road I came home on.

the train tracks

The front yard was a very small patch of grass between our front porch and the gravel lane. Our house was the last house on this end of the lane. The gravels were actually small smooth stones. I could sit for hours examining them carefully. I picked out the prettiest ones—or sometimes the ugliest ones when I felt sorry for them—to keep. I remember one time, after a particularly long and hard rain, building a dam out of those stones. I watched how the water slowed as it reached the little dam then flowed faster again after it went over the dam.

Just beyond the lane was the railroad tracks. I dreamed about the railroad a lot back then. I’ve always wanted to take a long train ride, but I never have. Well, not that I remember. The story goes that when I was two years old my family took a train ride through the English countryside. Apparently I mooed to every cow we passed. Mom swears the other passengers love it; Dad rolls his eyes.

My brothers and I used to put pennies on these tracks at night and rush out to get them the next morning. The coins were now worthless as legal tender but lucky as a rabbit’s foot. We stopped that after someone at school warned us we could get arrested for defacing government property.

My younger brother and I knew the train schedule. The train went twice a day: once around noon and once around 9:30 p.m. Between noon and bedtime we were brave enough to walk on the tracks. A few years earlier I was in training to be a gymnast. Now I pretended the track was my balance beam and would sometimes do cartwheels on it. This never failed to stop Ruth’s heart.


We waited for the school bus at the railroad crossing, which was not quite half way down the lane from our house. It was the only access to our gravel lane from the main road. One morning we were waiting for the bus and a train whistle blew. A train was coming down the tracks at the wrong time of day! I ran back up the lane to assure Ruth that we had heard it and were off the tracks. I thought she’d be relieved to know it. Instead, she worried that I would miss the bus.

“Run!” she said. “Run! Don’t miss the bus!”

I ran as hard as I could, which wasn’t very hard for a child with activity induced asthma. I barely beat the train and I ran right in front of it. I know I scared the engineer; he blew the whistle and hit the brakes. But I made it across. I peed my pants in the process though and ended up missing the bus anyway.

Sometimes the noon trains had passenger cars. If we were home from school, Dave and I would stand in the lane and wave at the passengers. They always waved back. I was sort of a prissy thing back then, so sometimes I would dress up for the occasion. I watched them go by and wondered who they were and where they were going.

At night we would listen for the 9:30 train. Some nights we tried to be asleep before we heard it. Actually I think this was a game I made up to get David to go to sleep. I loved the whistle and can’t imagine that I would have tried to be asleep before I heard it. I think the nights that I did fall asleep early, I heard the whistle anyway and these are the nights I dreamed of riding the train.

Intro to House Story

My favorite childhood home was a two story white house in rural West Virginia. The house was built in the 1800’s by my grandma’s great aunt’s husband. The house was sold out of the family for years then in the 1950, my grandma’s parents bought the house. In 1969, my grandparents bought it from them. Through the years the old house had served as a hotel or bed and breakfast-type establishment. There was a train station right out front for many years. (But not in my lifetime.)
I moved into this house in 1975 when Mom packed up her three youngest children and moved back to West Virginia. She and Dad had divorced a couple of years earlier and she decided she wanted a stronger support system. We moved into this two-story white house with her parents whom I didn’t know very well. I had met them several times before, but it was almost a year before I felt comfortable enough with them to call them Grandma and Grandpa.
I love this house. And I love that I grew up with my grandparents so close.
The front yard was a very small patch of grass between our front porch and the gravel lane. Our house was the last house on this end of the lane. The gravels were actually small smooth stones. I could sit for hours examining them carefully. I picked out the prettiest ones—or sometimes the ugliest ones when I felt sorry for them—to keep. I remember one time, after a particularly long and hard rain, building a dam out of those stones. I watched how the water slowed as it reached the little dam then flowed faster again after it went over the dam.