ginnygram

If we’d stopped the truck so that I could get out and take a photo of the two boys walking barefoot down their gravel road toward home, we’d evermore live in their memories as the creepy old couple who gave them a ride.

A little way on down the road, I did jump out. But only to take this photo to prove there’s only one ear on a stalk. (Told ya so.)

But back to the real story…

While Bill was having coffee on the deck last Saturday morning, two sweaty barefoot boys walked up from the puddle lake towards the house. They didn’t see Bill up on the Crow’s Nest, but he could hear them: “Let me do the talkin’,” said the smaller one with sandy-blond hair to the taller one. Sandy-hair carried an old rope.

It was really early, like 9:30, so I was still snoozing. But when I heard kids talking in my house, I got dressed real fast and went to find two stinky boys in my kitchen, gulping water and talking to Bill about their lost dog.

I cannot tell you how hard it was to not do this: Walk into the kitchen like a crone and cackle, “Well, who do we have here, dear? Staying for dinner, boys?”

But I quickly played that out. And the ending wasn’t happy.

Instead, I asked about their runaway dog. “He’s mine. He don’t leave my side, ‘cept for today,” said sandy-hair. “His name is Shama. I’m takin’ him with me to college.”

And what’s your name?

“William.”

Of course its was.

“And this is Jonah. He’s the funny one.” Really?

We offered them a ride home, as they’d walked a long way. They declined, even though I pointed out they weren’t wearing shoes.

“I don’t wear shoes, ‘cept to school.” William said. And off they went, calling for Shama.

Twenty minutes later, Bill and I headed out to the Amish farm to buy tomatoes. And there were William and Jonah, ooching and ouching up our gravel road. Yes, they’d appreciate a ride after all. And so we ferried them, with promises to tell Dave if we saw their dog. (“Dave knows me. I fish a lot.”) William was very polite and full of yessirs and yessums, and thanksomuches.

When they were out of the truck, my husband said, “Well, if that wasn’t Dennis the Menace!”

Nope. It was yet another 11-year-old Little Billy.

I’d rather be showing you a photo of our little band of entrepreneurs, on that July day back in 1969, but we were in so much trouble that no one thought to grab a camera. I was just glad no one grabbed a switch, truth be told.

The night before, we had watched men walking on the moon! I was 11, Bucky was 9, and Monty was going on 6. And the next day, wanting very badly to do something to celebrate, we set up a lemonade stand at Mar Mar and Granddaddy’s house on Maple Avenue. Let me remember: Of course, Melissa was in on it, but I think Reidy Nichols was there, too. (Grown-ups all thought Reidy was so sweet and quiet. Ha! She taught us the song about “the place in France where the nekked people dance, but the men don’t care ’cause they smoke their underwear.”)

What does a lemonade stand have to do with men walking on the moon? We named it Home-Made Moon-Maid Lemonade and Kool-Aid! And we made space helmets and Dick Tracy Moon Maid antennae out of tin foil! And we gave away cups of lemonade and Kool-Aid for free! Because it was a party! In those days, people pulled their cars over to children’s lemonade stands, so we happily gave away a lot!

And when Mar Mar saw we’d used all of her sugar, all of her lemons, all of her Kool-Aid mix, all of her Dixie cups, and worst, all of her tin foil…well, let’s just say she was a party pooper.

Tonight, I did step down into the basement. Not to photograph the laundry, but to see what other treasures might inspire a few words. (I found a few. That’s what basements and attics are for.)

This is my childhood piggy bank, sitting on a shelf, trying really hard not to disintegrate. As a child, I thought he was creepy. But now I wear a pair of vintage-glasses, through which he looks kinda cute.

Great-Grandmother and Great-Granddaddy Colvin gave us silver dollars for Christmas. The Tooth Fairy left us Kennedy half-dollars. My Christmas dollars and magic money are secure in this feller, along with some silver certificates, which I think were deposits made by Mar Mar and Granddaddy.

As fat as this little piggy bank is, wee wee wee can’t quit our day job.

A blogstress I follow says that even if you don’t have anything pithy to write, you should try to write just a little something. (My words, not hers, because she also says to write in your own voice.) She admitted that she has actually blogged about her laundry, rather than end her day sans pith. (Again, my words. And no smart-aleck remarks about “pith,” please.)

I decided not to go to the basement to photograph laundry. There probably isn’t any. But if there was, I’d have to pony up and run a load. And because it’s kinda late, I’d go to bed and leave wet clothes in the washing-machine. For days. And then I’d have to throw away otherwise perfectly good clothes, because I’d always smell a whiff of mildew on them. And that means I’d have to go shopping. And the injustice of that is…now that I can finally afford to shop, I now hate shopping. So no laundry blog for you. Not tonight, anyway.

Let’s check out the bookshelves instead. Oh look, here’s a little nun wearing a sequined habit! Given to me by Kate. (Hi, Kate.) Her arms are fuzzy pipe-cleaners with teeny little hands attached. (The nun’s, not Kate’s. Kate has lovely, human arms, with normal hands attached.) And the nun’s skirt is made from black sequins that are stuck into styrofoam with straight pins. Her wimple is also held in place by straight pins, which are stabbed into her temples. Kate was correct in assuming that I’d find this little curiosity completely puzzling and entertaining.

Because you just have to laugh: When the volcano buries us all in molten lava, and the archeologists dig us up a billion years from now, what will they make of little Sister Disco?

When Bill called me to “come here!” I thought he’d found a baby snake or something. Something that would sneak away really fast. So I hurried. But this is what he called me to spy: A perfect little mushroom, next to the rotting tree, next to the well-water pump.

I had to get down on one knee, in the squishy squelch, to get a good peep at it.

And I have to tell you, that even in my very grown-up stage of life, I held my breath and thought, “Oh, please, let there be a bitty wee fairy shading herself!”

When we got home from the lake today, in the pile of junk mail was a Do Not Bend envelope addressed to me, from Harvey! This Korn CD was in it. Let me tell you why.

A buncha years ago, our friends Harvey and Rita went on a road trip with us, to Lake Shelbyville. As we drove and drove and drove through miles and miles and miles of corn, corn, corn, we argued about the number of ears on a stalk of corn. Rita was adamant that there’s more than one. In her opinion, three ears would be worth the effort of a single stalk. But I’d always heard that one good ear is all a farmer hoped for. Maybe one and a half.

(This was BG. Before Google. Bi. Before iPhone.)

On our way home, and in the middle of Cornfield, Illinois, we stopped for gas and stuff at a Casey’s. And the only other car in the lot had an Illinois vanity plate that read “Korn.”

So while Rita and I were waiting our turn to pay for our Diet Cokes, she asked the young man in front of us: “Is that your car with the license plate Korn?”

“Yup.”

“Well then, you must know a lot about corn, with a plate like that. Can I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“How many ears are on a stalk of corn?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m just the drummer for the band Korn.”

I can hardly remember a time when my mother didn’t have a screened porch. In fact, I don’t think she’s been without one my whole life. We even had a teeny-tiny one over on Fifth Street, barely big enough for the ice-cream table and chairs. But by gum, she tricked it out with a hibachi and a candelabra and it was darn cute.

Oh, and way up in New Hampshire, Miss Gigi had the yankees scratching their heads when she directed construction of the first screened porch in Rockingham County. (The yankees also scratched mosquito bites, so you’d think they’d have seen the genius of screening sooner.)

Mama moved to this house last summer, and said goodbye to the wonderful, comfortable, big screened-in back porch that she and George shared for so long. And even though my mother’s new home has charm on top of more charm, and is her perfectly sized “Wendy house,” I worried that it lacked the natural ability of a screened porch to gather our generations into a warm and spirited circle.

And to think — for all these years, I’ve been giving all the credit to the screened porch.

While we were down in Mobile, we enjoyed a cool couple of hours in the Cotton City Antiques Mall.

I found some wonderfully hideous black-velvet paint-by-numbers of deer in the wilderness, a replacement butter dish in my favored Criss-Cross pattern (Laura actually found it), and an old book of Ghastly Ghost Stories, to broaden my campfire-stories repertoire.

But the best antique in the place was Dr. Sidney Phillips, aka Sid Phillips of Ken Burns’s The War and HBO’s The Pacific. He’s delightedly showing Laura where he is, in the photo on the title page of his book, You’ll Be Sor-ree! (He’s peeing in a bush, with his back to the camera! Right there, under the Y.) The photo was taken in 1942, while the U.S. Marines were resting in the field during the Guadalcanal campaign. Sid was only 17 years old.

Dr. Phillips also walked us through a vintage photo of his band of brothers, which was in the newspaper earlier that that week: “He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead, he’s mostly dead. Hell, they’re all dead,” he laughed. Yes, he laughed.

And he signed a copy of his book for our nephew Rollie, who is on an unwavering course for the Marines, as soon as he finishes college.

Can you read his inscription?

To Rollie — An American Patriot — 2 Timothy 1:7.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Semper Fi, Rollie.

It wasn’t on my bucket list, so I added it just so I could check it off: Drive the whole entire length of I-65. Is that cheating, to add stuff after you’ve done it? (I kinda think so.)

This past extra-long weekend, we drove from here to Kentucky to fetch Miss Gigi, then on to Mobile, Alabama, to salute our family’s newest Eagle Scout, nephew Trevor. Recognizing his achievement was absolutely the cherry on a very soul-satisfying southern-style sundae.

When we drive anywhere, we compete to spot hawks. We’ve actually spotted a cool 40 hawks in one trip from the lake to Chicago. Oddly, we spotted only three hawks on this very, very long road trip.

But the Eagle was awesome!

This is my Mr. Mixit. Well, he was our Mr. Mixit, shared by the three of us at Mar Mar and Granddaddy’s house.

But he lives with me now, full-time. No weekends or holidays for Bucky and Monty. You fill him with milk, ice cream, and chocolate syrup, and then push-push-push down on his hat, and he mixes you a milkshake! (That hole in the corner of his mouth is for a straw.)

Mr. Mixit hangs out on our kitchen counter with the Jim Beam Bartender, who is shaking up something award-winning for the 1973 International Cocktail Championship. Bartender guy is also from Mar Mar and Granddaddy’s house, but he wasn’t shared by Bucky, Monty, and me. And I wasn’t even going to bring him home with me, but my friend Melissa advised me to keep at least one of my Granddaddy’s Beam bottles. I thank you, Melissa. And Mr. Mixit thanks you.

Well, one day, a long time ago, my friend + colleage = frolleague Debbie and I went to the Sandwich, Illinois, antiques fair. Neither of us could afford much, but we sure enjoyed poking around and talking about stuff we love. Turns out, Debbie was mourning the loss of her beloved Mr. Mixit, who disappeared from her grandparents’ house when their estate was sorted out. Gosh, I came close to giving her mine. But instead, I resolved to find another one for her.

So for 20-odd years, I’ve kept an eye out for another Mr. Mixit, at every antique mall, junk market, and garage sale that I’ve been to. And I have been to a lot.

O happy day! Debbie’s sweetie just found a Mr. Mixit! And gave it to her for her birthday! Her Mr. Mixit hangs out in her office. So I decided that last Friday was Bring Your Mr. Mixit to Work Day.

They were so surprised to meet face to face! Neither knew he was a twin!