Vintage Summer

Above is my brother carting me around, about 1964.

Just above are my sisters and me, about 1967

 First is one of MANY art projects provided by my Mom

Just above is a typical Sunday on a sandbar in the Mississippi.  We would load up the car & small boat, drive to Lansing IA, put in, and boat up the river.  Then pitch the awning and play.

My sisters playing "pool" about 1975.  They got all the neighborhood kids to go home and get their suits, then pretend to swim on our lawn while my sisters blew their whistles and ordered them around.

Born Leaders.

My sister SJV and I, about 1967

Me, about 1964

My Dad, us kids, some neighbor kids, and a fish called "supper".  About 1967.

Vintage sibling photos

More family slides! Above we have my Mom, reading us a story.

My Dad holding me, my brother, and a newborn Cheesecake Maven. Don't you agree my Dad looks like Captain James T. Kirk?

Cheesecake Maven (looking a lot like her son #2), me, and my brother.

Cheesecake Maven, Sister #2, brother, and me

Ninja Siblings! My brother and I had been playing "karate" that night. Check out my black belt!

Siblings

Back home after another weekend with my siblings. Since our parents died suddenly in 1999, within months of each other, it's like we have this pact to stay together no matter what. We're quite different from each other in many ways, and we all have powerful egos and big ideas. But we've managed to maintain that happy extended family feeling for each other, and our kids.

In this area of my life, I am one lucky woman. Each of my siblings would give me the shirt off their back. Each of them would drive to my side in the dark of night if I asked them.

Like the photo above, we spend a lot of time around someone's kitchen table. But the chocolate milk has been replaced with coffee or wine. Grey hair has replaced dark. And there are a lot more people joining us now. But we have the same joy as those kids.

Best Gifts of Childhood #1

We watched old family slides this weekend from the 1950's - 1970's. Brought back some wonderful memories, and the Christmas shots reminded me of some of my favorite childhood toys.

My parents never had a lot of money. They rented until their 40's! But they gave us a pretty wonderful childhood full of music, laughing, picnics, outdoors, fishing, cousins, and good food. God Rest Their Souls I hope there is a heaven because they deserved a break!!!

And they always gave us a good Christmas. We always got great stuff - not big piles like our wealthier friends but just enough to make merry. They kept it all hidden and devised crafty ways to get it under the tree. One year they hid my brother's sled under his bed because they knew he NEVER looked under there.

Pictured above is my first installment, in no particular order. It's a beauty salon set for a Penny Bright doll. I never cared so much about the doll, but those pieces were just fascinating to me and gave me YEARS of play. Usually they made it into various homemade Barbie houses.

Copies of the family slides are coming, and I have actual shots of me playing with this. I hope to add them soon.

What are some of YOUR favorite Christmas gift memories?? Let me know in the comments or blog.

Remembering Ted's Tobacco

While in my hometown last weekend, I remembered one of the best places of my childhood:

Ted's Tobacco Store.

It was on a corner of our downtown, housed in an architecturally significant building, complete with a rounded, pointed tower prominently filling the corner. The front entrance was a lopsided green screened door in the summer, and a heavy wooden thing in the winter that sounded the bell inside. Evidently Ted's had once been a bank, and the venerable dark wood trimmings and vault were still visible.

Ted's was another block down on the right,
but it was similar to the turreted building on the right you see here.

Ted's had an amazing aroma: a mixture of chocolate, peppermint, and cigars. The most important feature was the soda fountain, where we'd sit on old fashioned bar stools and order cherry cokes, vanilla cokes, or chocolate ice cream sodas. Ever had one? I haven't had a great chocolate ice cream soda in years, and they are hard to describe to my kids.

Ted's also had the most amazing glass-cased array of penny candy. We kids would stand there for hours making the exact right choice for our dime. I'm sure the staff hated to see us coming. This Norman Rockwell print captures the memory almost exactly.

Ted's also carried all the comic books - Archie was my favorite - and I think they carried the girlie mags but I never noticed. And of course they sold tobacco - pipes, cigars, papers, bags, etc. I'm a rabid non-smoker but I do love the smell of bagged tobacco. And pipe smoke.

Above Ted's was an apartment occupied by my friend Kristy's Grandmother. I thought it was utterly exotic to live above a downtown store, and my book-fevered childhood brain felt that must be what it was like to live in New York City. When visiting, she'd make us finger sandwiches with the CRUSTS CUT OFF!! I thought I had died and gone to heaven, or Manhattan. My mother would never consider cutting the crusts off my sandwiches.

Sadly, no photos exist that I could find of Ted's Tobacco Store. It's now a gift shop and has none of the old feel. Sigh. . . . . I must be getting old.

Kabetogama Weather

As mentioned in my 1967 Dodge Polara story, my family would travel to Lake Kabetogama in Voyageurs National Park every June for a week of fishing. We would rent a small cabin at Park Point Resort or Deerhorn Resort. Deerhorn as been totally remodeled in the years since - it looks nothing like the place we stayed.

Now mind you, when we say "resort" we mean an extremely small cabin with the smallest beds imaginable, nails or hooks in the wall for your clothes, about 2 square feet of counter space, an apt sized stove/oven, and just enough room in the living space to change your mind. All had those behemoth gas heaters in the living room and teeny bathrooms that had been added in the late 1960's or early 1970's - in other words don't drop your soap in the shower because you'll have to step out and bend over to reach it.

The first several years our "resort" had only a central bathhouse with toilets, and of course you brought your own bath towels from home. We thought it was adventurous to walk down the dirt road to take a shower. To this day, the smell of Pine Sol brings it all back. I'm sure my mother didn't relish having to escort any of four kids every 30 minutes. In fact, not much about it was a vacation for my Mom - she still cooked, washed dishes, watched kids, etc. She deserved every single stolen second on that lake.

My parents lived to fish. Alternating childcare with my Aunt Mary or Grandma Gie, they would go out on the Lake with their husband and fish for hours at a time, and I mean HOURS. If you went along, they sternly warned you there would be no coming back until they were good and ready. They would leave at dawn, come in for lunch, then go back out until 8pm. We'd have glorious fried walleye for supper at 9:00 at night - that far north the sun was just setting.

How lucky we were to have Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles and cousins to vacation with! Us kids could play for hours in the freezing cold lake. It was too cold in early June to swim (but good for fishing!) so we'd play on the rocks, put salt on leeches, catch minnows, fish from the dock, or feed the chipmunks.

The memories are so thick from those days on the lake. One foggy morning, my Dad took only me, probably about 10 years old, out for a morning of fishing. At one point, the fog grew so thick that we couldn't see further than about 2 feet from the boat. Dad powered down the Evinrude and we washed up against a large rock. You could hear the other fishermen laughing "Where the hell are we?", "I can't see a goddamn thing!". Dad just shrugged and said we might as well start fishing. So this 10-year-old girl had her Daddy all to herself, swaying in the fishing boat, talking about life and laughing about the fog.

In the years since, when I was living in Southern Iowa, a cool cloudy day would come along in June and we'd call it "Kabetogama Weather". When it was summer on the calendar but it felt like late September outside. I'd happily put on a sweatshirt and enjoy a cup of coffee, knowing it would heat up with high humidity the very next day.

But now that I live only 6 hours south of Kabetogama, I don't enjoy that weather so much. Summers in Minnesota are drop-dead beautiful but they ARE fleeting, and I don't want one day from June 1st to August 31st to be wasted. Rain I'll take, but not 50 degrees on top of it. But it does stir up some fine memories.

Automobile Memories

Best Car Ever in my life: a 1967 Dodge Polara station wagon.

My parents bought this car brand new in 1967. We were living in a pink stucco rental house in "the Flats" of Decorah, Iowa when they upgraded from a Pontiac. That car took our family on several adventures.

Every summer since about 1968, it drove us to International Falls, Minnesota to fish in Lake Kabetogama. Dad had bought a handmade car top carrier consisting of a dark green painted wooden box with suction cups on the bottom and a tarp on the top. Dad would load up the Evinrude outboard motor, the fishing poles, the tackle box, Winnie the dog, and all the groceries and we'd hit the road for a week in the northwoods. Don't worry, the dog went inside the car.

On the way we'd watch for familiar landmarks like the oil refinery in St. Paul, Little Oscar's diner in Cannon Falls, and the Frank Lloyd Wright gas station in Cloquet. That car had no air conditioning so we'd drive the whole way with the windows wide open, a Twins game on the AM radio, and Dad's cigarette dangling out the wing vent. One kid would flip the ashtray lids on the back doors open-shut-open-shut until Dad lost it. Another would fall asleep in the "way-back" but only for 15 minute intervals - Mom was convinced the rusting rear end would let in CO2 and suffocate us. And any combination of two sisters would have a hair-pulling fight over who crossed THE LINE they'd drawn to mark their space. Dad had an uncanny ability to keep that thing screaming along at 75mph while simultaneously smacking kids in the back seat.


With a trailer hitch on the back, it hauled our small boat and motor on summer Sundays to Lansing, Iowa were we'd put in at the landing and motor up the Mississippi until we found a suitable sandbar. There we'd pitch a smelly canvas canopy, unpack the cooler, and play for hours in the current. Mom made us each wear those bulky orange life vests - she couldn't swim and her greatest fear was watching one of us drown. Dad would swim underwater and pitch us straight up in the air. When we hit the water, our bodies would keep going with the momentum of Dad's strong shove, but the life vest would stop our head and neck cold. Riding home on the vinyl seats in the summer heat with sand in the crotch of my swimsuit is a sensation I'm not likely to forget.

The Dodge drove us out to the Rocky Mountains to visit family. It also drove us along Route 66 through Barstow and on to San Diego. It drove to Metropolitan Stadium for Twin's games. It drove to the Apache Mall for school shopping. It hauled dogs, kids, innertubes, bikes, tools, and anything else we could load.


One of our favorites "rides" in the Dodge was THE TICKLE HILLS! There was a series of about 3 large hills on a gravel road just north of town. Us kids would stand up behind the front seat - the kind of front seat that was a substantial Wall of China - and put our hands in the air. Dad would floor it, and fly as fast as he could up those hills. I believe we were actually air born at the top on several occasions. We could chant "No Hands! No Hands! No LEEEAAANNING!" and at the crest of the hill we'd fly backwards on our butts, laughing hysterically. You'd get a visit from the Dept of Child Welfare for that kind of entertainment these days.


Everyone in our small town knew it was THE JENKINS' car. You could see that thing coming for miles. It seemed to be about 15 feet long. The steering wheel was about 2 feet in diameter and it accelerated like crazy. I learned to drive AND parallel park in that beast, and subsequently I can parallel park ANY vehicle. My Dad forced me out on to the gravel roads and made me drive 50mph so I wouldn't be afraid of them.

Towards the end of it's life, it was showing the wear and tear. There was a giant rust hole in the tailgate. My brother probably helped that along when he and his friends backed it up to the gravel pit, opened the tailgate, and used it for a diving board. It DID have a lot of spring! I finally killed it in 1980 when I wanted to learn to do doughnuts. So a friend and I drove to another quarry and spun for all it was worth, until a loud sickening CLUNK from underneath ended our fun. I had broken the drive shaft.

Dad was mad enough to spit nails. He had planned to drive it to the junkyard that summer and get $50 for it. But now we had to pay $100 to have it towed.

When I get to heaven, one thing I'll ask to do is ride in the Dodge's backseat with my Dad at the wheel, my Mom in the passenger seat, my dog Winnie and my siblings by my side, and a Whippy Dip ice cream cone in my hand. But please, no sand in my crotch.

Uncle Sam's Bathtub Pork

Anyone remember I mentioned that my Uncle Sam, at his cabin in the woods, makes pork in the bathtub? This is my gene pool, it explains a lot of my behavior, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Uncle Sam is an ISU-educated Civil Engineer with a Midas Touch at everything he does. In a few weeks I'll share his chili instructions.

Here is his recipe, verbatim:

SAM'S BATHTUB PORK

The problem with this recipe is that you really need a cast iron bathtub. Now those are becoming somewhat hard to find. You see them in folks' front yard with a statue of the blessed mother, some folks put flowers in them, others use them for horse troughs. Well the best use is a barbecue pit. I forgot to mention that some folks still think they should be used for bathing. Get yourself a cast iron bathtub. Go to the dump, recycle shop, antique dealer, or through the stealth of night get one. You'll be the envy of the neighborhood.

Now you'll need a grate to lay on top of the tub. The fire goes in the tub and the grate sits over the fire. A heavy screen from a gravel plants is ideal. They throw them away, you catch one. If this is not available, build one. Next you need a pan to sit on the grate with a grate inside the pan to put the pork on. Find a friend who can weld. If you don't have a friend, make one but make sure he can weld (or she. I don't know many lady welders but work with what you have.) You'll need a hood to cover the pan. Go to any heating and cooling contractor and they can make a light weight hood. A steel barrel cut in half will work but it does get heavy.

Now you put the fire in the tub, the grate over the fire, the pan over the grate, the grate in the pan and the hood over the grate and the pan and you have a bathtub barbecue. Ain't that somethin'.

The fire is an integral part of this whole operation. You need some well cured Iowa oak. I suppose oak from Missouri, Illinois or even France would work but I know Iowa oak is just right. You can use cherry, apple, pecan, mesquite, plum or maple but it has been my experience that oak smoke blended with the fat of pork is a culinary delight.

Let's talk about the fire. You start it 1/2 hour before you put the pork on. You don't start it and walk away. Get some kindling. That's small dry pieces of wood that will start readily. Use newspaper under the kindling, it's cheap and quick. Put dry oak wood on the fire while it is starting. You want all the paper and kindling to be burned out before you lay on the pork. In that first 1/2 hour you should build up a good bed of burning oak coals. This is the working bed of your fire. You will add oak wood to the fire throughout the cooking process. Make sure you have pieces that vary in size. The largest should be no bigger than 5" in diameter.

And if you're going to cook pork, you should have some. Go to your local meat market and ask for a full loin of pork, bone in. This is a piece of the hog that is 1/2 of the whole back. It's all those pork chops all hooked together. You will want to cut it in half for cooking purposes. This piece of pork will serve up to 30 hungry souls after cooking. Before you put the pork on the fire, you spread it with salt. Plain old kitchen salt. Use the container it comes in, pour salt on the outside of the pork (all sides) and rub it in with your bare hands. Now put it on the grate that sits over the pan that sits over the grate that sit over the fire. Put on the cover and let it go. You must tend the fire! It must not be too hot (the meat will catch fire) or too cold (the meat won't cook). Lay your hand on top of the hood, If you can leave it there, your fire is not hot enough. If you touch it and it's too hot to leave your hand there, it's probably about right.

You will need to cook it for 4 to5 hours. Check it a couple of times in the process. At the 3 hour mark you can slice off some pieces to taste. When it is done you can grab a rib bone and it will feel loose. If it feels loose eat the pork. If it doesn't feel loose maybe your feel is bad. Cut the piece of pork in two pieces, look at it, and make up your own mind.

Movies that scared the crap out of me

A friend and I were talking about Bette Davis the other day, and remembering being scared half out of our wits by "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane" and "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte". Baby Jane Hudson especially gave me nightmares. We'd sit with our homemade popcorn covered in butter, in our pj's, covered with blankets on the sofa getting so totally creeped out that we'd fight over who had to get up and close the drapes over the now-dark windows. Every time she fed Blanche the rat I'd pee my pants. And every time I'd squirm and root for Blanche to hurry up, hurry up!!!!! HIT HER already!!!

It wasn't until my 20's that I discovered Bette Davis was quite the young bombshell in her time.

Good Old Jokes

Iowa has many round barns. Whenever we'd drive past one, my Dad would always tell the same old joke, and we'd always bite.

Dad, "Hey kids! Did you know a guy DIED in there?"
Gullible kid, "REALLY DAD?!?!?!"
Dad, "Yep. He went crazy looking for a corner to pee in!"

Birthday Party Camp Out

Our youngest had her 9th birthday party over the weekend. She requested a camp-out sleepover in the backyard, and her birthday wish was our command.

Here is Mr. Wonderful, aka my husband John, cooking up supper on the campfire. We love our fire pit. Most of those rocks were gathered from right around our house, and during the last 4 years we've made a tradition of bringing home large samples from our travels. So somewhere in there is a specimen from the Rocky Mountains, the shores of Lake Michigan, and Daytona Beach.

Couldn't resist this shot - all five have exactly the same hair! Well, except our daughter on the far left who has layers and layers of the stuff. Once at a restaurant, she hid 6 crayons in there and you couldn't tell. Now that's an accomplishment.

See that tent lean? That's because two adults, married to each other, tried to put it up together. Although I must say, if I hadn't been there he'd still be working on it.

Next up Birthday Cake Cones!! Just fill ice cream cones about 1/3 up with cake batter and bake for about 20 minutes. Yeah, that's my fat belly in the photo and no I didn't eat any of the cake.

My screened porch and the center of our universe from May through September. I love this house, and it's ripping my heart out to have it on the market.

Sadly a thunderstorm blew in shortly after supper, so the "camp out" happened in the basement, and the smore's were cooked in the microwave. Ever seen marshmallows puff up in the microwave?? It's quite impressive.

So, Why Happy to Be From Iowa??

You're probably wondering about the origins of my blog title since I live in Minnesota, in fact I'll bet it occupies your mind a fair amount of the day. Well your worries are over, I'm about to tell you.

As a kid, I was a bookworm. I loved the smell of the library, and the crackle of that weird not-quite-plastic stuff they put on the hardcovers. In almost every novel I read, the protagonist or narrator was bemoaning their small town life, their small town family, and their small town friends. But I just couldn't identify - I was happy to be from Iowa!

Perhaps it was because I grew up in an area that is physically gorgeous. Northeast Iowa was not glaciated as was the rest of the state. There you'll find the most dramatic hills, deep valleys, and rivers brought on by nearby glacial melt. The above photo is the Upper Iowa River that runs right through my hometown of Decorah, Iowa. I've spent many happy hours floating there on an innertube just lazing away a summer afternoon beneath the looming limestone bluffs.
Iowans are always coming up with fun ways to pass the time. Take RAGBRAI - that's an acronym for the Register's Annual Great Bike Ride Across Iowa. Thousands of cyclists of every age and fitness level dip their rear bike tires in the Missouri River, then ride a brutal 7-day path across the state to dip their front tire in the Mississippi. This event takes place at the end of July - during some of the most extreme heat and humidity known to man. But the roads are lined with Iowans cooking up sweet corn, ice cream, pie, cake, and lots of dancing in the streets.
Iowa is full of some of the most beautiful natural resources. Yes, it's also full of pigs and corn but you gotta look further. The photo above is from Dunning Springs - right smack in Decorah. This stunningly cold spring water comes pouring out of a limestone cave to gush over the cliffside.

And this is Herky the Hawk - the mascot for my alma mater the University of Iowa. See how that Michigan State Spartan can't catch up? The attention surrounding Hawkeye sports is incredible. Basically because there are no professional teams to speak of in Iowa, all that fan energy is funneled into the Hawkeyes. Some will claim there is another large university in Iowa but let's just not go there. Hawkeye tailgating is like nothing you've ever seen - most of those attending the games didn't even attend the college! Iowans just like to be outside in the Fall, cooking up some brats, and hanging out with other football fans.

I have many other reasons, which I'll post at later intervals. Iowa was a place to grow.

Mnmom: The Ralphie Years

I was just cleaning out a closet and found this gem. I was probably 8, so it would be 1970. Starting on the right, we have me. Complete in my favorite plush coat and long stocking cap. The glasses however were not my favorite. I was cursed with the worst eyesight imaginable and have been wearing the ugliest glasses since first grade.

Next we have my World Class Best Friend Bethany. Bethany is now the coolest, hippest single woman living in a gorgeous 7 bedroom home in Boston. I miss her greatly. We were best friends through all of childhood and college. She knows all my warts and loves me still.

Next we have an unknown - it might be my sister Cheesecake Maven, but I have my doubts. That kid is too tall to be my little sister.

Next is Bethany's kid brother Mike.

We are enjoying a lovely winter afternoon at our small town skating rink. That was THE social spot in the cold months. I always enjoyed the groovy graffiti left by the big kids in the warming shack, and looked forward to the day when I could be cool like them. All warming shacks at outdoor ice rinks smell the same, and the odor takes me right back to childhood.

This is my brother and I in our backyard in Marshalltown, Iowa probably 1964. We are wearing the coolest Gunsmoke sweatshirts. My Mom took lots of photos and had them developed as slides. And they still look good some 40 plus years later.

That is one lethal looking rake.

Remember when we were comparing our "Little House on the Prairie" phases? Well this was mine. I loved this dress with a passion that's hard to describe. Mom bought it for me at our downtown JCPenney and I was in heaven. Let me make an important distinction. I loved the Little House BOOKS and loathed the show. This look predates that horrible TV program anyway, so I was prairie before Michael Landon made it sappy. This could also be called my Holly Hobby phase.