Today’s Reflections – March 29, 2009

A cool and drizzly day here in Orange County. The grass is beginning to green up somewhat. My crocus’ have bloomed and the peepers have been peeping for a couple of weeks.

While signs of spring are obvious (and welcomed), I thought back to a time when spring came at a later time…

Go back to age 18, a free spirit with visions of a whole new world around me.

March was always a dreary month. Grass brown. Air chilly –  even though buds were enlarged on our lilac bush and peepers were peeping.

Winter needed “to go.”

So I would hop in my 1971 Chevy Nova and start driving south – Route 209 to as far as Princeton, New Jersey.

What could be there?

Early April was so drab in Orange County. Princeton, a mere 80 or so miles south of my home offered blooms of daffodils and the smell of newly mowed grass.

Oh, the difference of 80 miles!

I’d just drive down with the express reason of finding Spring! And I definitely found it there!

Today, my crocus and daffodils are blooming. The grass won’t be mowed for another couple of weeks here…

Is this early “greening” due to “global warming”?

I’m not sure –

But I sure am happy I don’t have to drive all the way to Princeton to find some color here in Orange County today!

Black Chocolate Cake

Here is a favorite that is credited to my Grandmother Blanche Doland. The cake (along with the icing) tastes just like an Oreo cookie!

Black Chocolate Cake

Preheat your oven to 325° Fahrenheit. Grease (we used a light coating of Crisco shortening) a 9″ x 11″ baking pan.

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl:

• 2 cups flour
• 2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup cocoa powder
• 1 tsp. baking powder
• 2 tsp. baking soda
• 1 tsp. salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1/2 cup vegetable oil
• 1 cup hot coffee (you can dissolve 1 tbs. instant coffee granules into 1 cup hot water)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract

Mix all ingredients together and pour into your greased baking pan.

Bake for 45 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. (The edges will pull away from the sides and the center may separate slightly when nearly finished – this is normal!)

Uncle Fudge

Here’s a family treasure of Uncle Harold Lynch. Actually, he was my dad’s uncle and my great uncle.

In my teen years, we affectionately nicknamed him “Uncle Fudge.” Can’t remember exactly why. There must have been something he did or something about his character that gave him this title. And for anyone who knew Uncle Fudge, they would certainly agree: He was a character!

This picture was taken sometime in the late 1940’s. I don’t remember anyone saying that Uncle was a WWII vet, but I’m near positive he didn’t make the Korean War either.

My sister and I found a silver bracelet with some oriental inscription written on it. Our mother said that Uncle Fudge brought it back home when he was in Japan.

Now, I really hate to stereotype anyone, but Uncle like to drink. I don’t know if he learned this prior to enlisting in the Navy or after.

I think I was about 12 or 13 years old when I realized that U.F. had this drinking problem.

We – my father, mother, sister and me – were coming home one evening from my Grandparent’s house in Johnson. It may have been around 8:30 pm. We began following this little car. It was all over the road, weaving left over the middle line and then meandering back over to the right hand side of the highway.

The little car turned right at the next road, while we continued our way. About 30 seconds later my dad exclaimed, “I think that was Uncle Fudge!”

He then turned our car around to go back to the road that the little car had turned on, the little narrow dirt road with stonewall fences on each side of it that led to Uncle Fudge’s house. Back in the late 60’s, many roads in Orange County were either dirt or chipped and tarred. Today these same roads have been upgraded to nice blacktop and of course widened to allow for the heavier traffic of the 2000’s.

Anyway, back to the story…

We hadn’t gone many feet when we came upon the little car perched like a teeter tauter upon the rock wall! It was Uncle Fudge!

My dad calmly got out of his car. My uncle tried hard to accelerate the car off the wall with no success. His back tires just kept spinning in the air.

My dad open his car door and uncle peered out and said in a voice as if this was something that happened to him every day, “What happened Howard? I think I’m stuck!”

Well, we got him out of his car and to his home… but we laughed about this for years.

More about Uncle Fudge in posts to come!

A Love Letter to my Mother

Yesterday evening, I began looking through some items contained in an old tin box.

I had looked through it before a long time ago, but today was different. I actually took the time and scrutinized it’s contents.

There were many mementos my mother had saved from her high school days in the early 1940’s. Report cards, graduation announcements, pages from an autograph book. Also were letters she saved that were written to her from my dad.

My mom at the time lived in Matamoras, PA with Uncle Jim and his wife. My dad with his folks in Johnson, NY.

They met at the old “Joyland” roller-rink in Port Jervis. It was located on a street that ended at the Neversink River. There was a picnic area, a spot for swimming, and the roller-rink. It was one of the places kids gathered to associate with old buddies and meet new friends.

It was in July of 1942. My mom was 18 and my dad was 19.

She remembers him singing “White Christmas” for the crowd of skaters back then. (My dad had a wonderful voice!) They met – must have been some electricity between them – and the couple was destined to become my parents!

Here’s a letter my dad wrote in January of 1943:

Hello Sweetheart

“Well here it is about twenty four hours since I’ve seen you last. I haven’t done very much since then except clean up your car and my gas tank. I just got finished (g___ d____ pen) and what a job that was. I should have waited until Sunday and let you help me but the I figured it would take too much time when we could be doing something more pleasant.

“I am home all alone tonight, the rest of the family went to the card party. I was going to call you on the phone but being it is around eight-thirty, you might possibly be in bed so I guess I’ll have to settle for this letter. I’ve got your picture right here in front of me and writing this as though I was talking to you. The only trouble is so far it seems to be a one way conversation.

“I seen Andy this noon on his way to work. It seems as though he didn’t feel like going to work this morning. He said he got up at ten o’clock and still felt tired.

“I suppose I ought to answer Don’s letter tonight but I don’t think I’ll be able to get going so it will have to wait until tomorrow sometime or Wednesday night.

“Last nigh coming home I hears over the news that some military experts were saying that the way the war is going right now, they think the war will be over some time next year. Well, I’ve got my fingers crossed and praying.

“Well hon I think I’ll close now and go to bed and within twenty-four hours more, I’ll see you again.”

Yours with all my love,

Howie

P.S. I don’t know whats getting into me. I’m starting to write a letter instead of a note. HD”

So touching for a daughter to read. The courtship of your parents is not something a child witnesses! Growing up, we see our parents in a different light than what they see in each other.

By the time I was born (I being the middle child), they had already been married 9 years! And early memories of my parents for me mean some time in the late 1950’s – perhaps as early as 1957.

So, when I look at the photo of the smiling couple of 1996 hanging on my wall while I’m reading these letters, it made me look up and smile, knowing that there really was a love between them that survived the rockiness of any marriage!

My Grandmother, My Mother’s Mother

My grandmother, born Mary Luft, was the oldest of 13 children.

I never knew her. Actually my mother never knew her.

Grandma Mary died when my mother was 18 months old of peritonitis. Her appendix ruptured and the poison that saturated her system killed her. Back in the 1920’s, medicine was not what it is today. Mary was all of 20 years old.

Mary’s mother, my great-grandmother, said, “Death is never quite the same until you lose one of your own. You carry them within your body for 9 months…” and she would sigh. Yes, great-Grandma Luft lost her 20 year-old daughter and things after that were never quite the same for her.

My mother spent her summers on Grandma and Grandpa Luft’s farm in Warwick, New York. She played with her aunts and uncles who were her age. Since her mother, Mary, was the eldest of 13, my mother was born during the time Mary’s mother was still bearing children! This was pretty common back in the days of large farm families.

My mother always wondered how her life would have been had she had the love and guidance of her mother as she was growing up.

The First Thing I Remember

It’s funny when you think about what you don’t remember and wonder why.

For instance, I wonder why my first memory was not of my mother or father. I wonder why my first memory was of my two first friends and going to an annual picnic.

My first (two) friends were twins, John and Jerry Raymond.

I remember them in the back seat of a car, standing on the edge of the seat and leaning on the seat back of the front seat. If you think about it, they must have been small. I’m guessing around age 3.

And I was even younger – because I am one year younger than John and Jerry.

But I remember them there, curly blonde hair, wiggling to get their mother’s attention.

We were going to Tillson Lake for the Dairyman’s League picnic. My grandfather, a dairy farmer, belonged to the Dairyman’s League.

Their annual picnic would include trying to find pennies buried in sawdust, my first taste of chocolate milk (from a carton!), memories of picnic tables under little individual open-air houses, swimming and roller skating.