Vehicles I Remember: 1963 Chevrolet (Last Installment in This Series)

Around 1966, my parents thought they needed a car with fewer miles than their 1957 Chevrolet had. They turned to the Dowdens, who were selling a 1963 white Chevrolet Bel Air. A generation earlier, Milton Dowden had been a sign painter in town; his son, Milton L., who went by “Milt,” could hang wallpaper better than anyone! Milt’s wife, Elsie, had given my mother a recipe for sour milk drop cookies that my mother included among her favorite desserts. My father and mother respected—and liked—the Dowdens very much. I recall almost no deliberation about the automobile; my parents bought it right away.

The 1963 Chevrolet Bel Air, an IH 560 Tractor,

Brothers Ready for School, and a Fox Terrier

My mother and father enjoyed the 63 Chevy more than I did. The aesthetics of the design did not appeal to me. There was something about the look and feel of the ceiling fabric that turned me off. The color was light aqua. The material felt like plastic, and it had a pattern of tiny circular holes. What can I say? After experiencing the interior of the 57 Chevrolet, the 63 seemed cheap inside. The seat covers also struck me as anything but luxurious. Even the exterior lines of the vehicle made me feel that Chevrolet had lowered its design standards. We were riding in a thin horizontal box with a roof and windows that projected above the box. The lack of chrome and the plain round taillights seemed to proclaim that everything about the car was cheapened to the lowest denominator.

As far as I remember, the car was dependable. It did not languish for long periods of time in Glen Bisel’s shop; rather, it ran and ran in its bland, undistinguished way. My family rode in its cheapness from place to place for many years. The white car reminded me of sour milk: that is, sour milk by itself, not as an ingredient in Elsie Dowden’s delicious cookies!

At the end of its life, the car faded into obscurity, replaced by a 1966 Pontiac Catalina that my parents and I loved. Typical of the Chevrolet was its unremarkable demise; I cannot remember what became of it.

I do fondly recall Elsie Dowden’s cookies, however! Here is her recipe:

Elsie Dowden’s Sour Milk Drop Cookies

Ingredients

1 cup shortening (butter and lard combined)

2 cups brown sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour milk (or buttermilk)

1 cup raisins, chopped

½ cup chopped walnuts

4 cups flour

1 tsp nutmeg

1 tsp vanilla

½ tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder (heaping tsp)

Directions

Preheat oven to 375°. Cream shortening and sugar. Add beaten eggs. Dissolve baking soda in milk. Sift flour, heaping teaspoon of baking powder, salt, and nutmeg together. Mix all and add floured nuts and raisins. Drop from spoon onto buttered baking sheet. Bake for ten minutes or until the bottom edges begin to turn lightly brown.

  

Why I Planted Peaches and Pears (Last Installment in This Series)

When I moved from the city, my new home had half a dozen old apple trees near the silo beside the barn. They were of the winesap cultivar. Neglected for many years, they were in sad shape. I followed instructions in The Reader’s Digest Illustrated Guide to Gardening to prune them. They held on for a few more years, but the yield was usually disappointing. I finally gave up. The wood lent fragrance to many a winter’s day when I burned it in my Buck stove. I replaced the trees with plums, apples, peaches, and pears. This is a story about the last two.

I remembered how thoroughly my mother enjoyed the fresh fruit from her trees. How easily I can picture her as she sat watching Ruth Lyons on the Zenith black-and-white TV while eating a peach, which dripped down her chin. How readily I can see her later in the year as she plucked a pear and bit into its inner pale yellow goodness. Nothing made her happier! She was certainly no J. Alfred Prufrock, who asks, “Do I dare to eat a peach?” Like my mother, I was determined to grow peaches and pears, not just apples.

My Peaches That Snapped Their Branches

 

In my area, frosts nip the fruit blooms almost every year. With the loss of the spring flowers comes a fruitless harvest. Two years ago, the peach tree blossoms escaped the usual frost. The fruit set on so thickly and heavily that the branches began to split off the trunks of the trees. I tried to prevent calamity by propping the branches with two-by-fours, but the limbs broke at the points of support. I had the greatest crop of peaches ever! … but the cost was dear. My peach trees are so weakened that I plan to replace them with new stock.

Last year, the blooming of the pear trees slipped in between the killing frosts. The fruit set on in bunches like overgrown grapes. The branches arched downward, many of them touching the ground, and I was afraid that my pear trees would be destroyed in the same way that my peach trees were ruined in the previous year. My pears were younger, which caused their branches to be springier. Luckily, none of the limbs snapped! They were covered with fruit of that indescribable outward color (green or yellow or brown, depending on the angle and the light). For weeks, I enjoyed the purity of pears. To me, the flavor of pears is uncomplicated but powerful in its simplicity. When you make your own apple sauce, include one or two pears. You will be amazed how the notes of the pear enhance the taste of the apples!

My Heavenly Pears in Jars

No wonder pears have figured so prominently in literature and the other arts! They are divine!

     

Why I Planted Squash

In a recent year, the seeds I planted in several adjacent rows in my vegetable garden failed to germinate. Faced with a blank space, I wished to fill it. Always be careful what you wish for! I bought summer squash seeds and formed half a dozen hills of two or three seeds each. All of them grew. And grew. And grew. When I began harvesting squash, I had delusions of keeping up. I collected a few and relished their rich flavor. But soon, I had too many! I was fetching them by the bushel basket nearly every day. I could not begin to give them away! The plants commandeered half of the garden. Each morning, when I went to the garden to pick the squash, I could not find spaces for my feet. From some crazy desire not to crush the thick leaf stems of my gigantic squash plants, I proceeded slowly on tiptoe, almost losing my balance and teetering above the squash jungle. To have fallen among the foliage in such a way as to have wiped out a few of the plants and to have slowed the production of squash would have been a blessing, but I never fell.

Squash Taking Over My Garden

Finally, I was forced to admit to myself that I had too many squash, and I began chucking their swollen bodies over the ravine into my creek. Poet and novelist Marge Piercy perfectly captured the same experience in her poem entitled “Attack of the Squash People,” which I first heard her read in 1980:

https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/html/1807/4350/poem1606.html

Piercy’s poem is hysterical in the fullest sense of the adjective. I know. So was I.

One of Several Baskets of Squash That I Harvested Every Morning

Harvesting Squash by the Wagonload

A digression is in order. I first met Piercy when I was earning my master’s degree in poetry writing at Indiana University. She addressed the workshop of ten poets in which I was enrolled. Our professor had mailed an anonymous sampling of our poems to Piercy in advance of her visit. After she was introduced, Piercy said, “I want to discuss one of your poems. It is ‘Wrestling.’ Who wrote it?” I raised my hand. Piercy complimented my work. Several years later, after I had finished my PhD and was teaching at Northern Kentucky University, Piercy came for a reading. At a social event, I asked her if she remembered my poem. She said she did. I had the joy of meeting Piercy on at least two additional occasions. One was at the home of a creative writing professor. Music was playing. Piercy was sitting beside the professor. I had walked over to Piercy to ask a question about poetry, but she brushed off my introductory remarks, stood, and commanded, “Dance with me!” Embarrassed as all get out, I danced. In a matter of seconds, everyone was dancing. I undoubtedly got more from dancing with Piercy for a few minutes than I would have received by asking my question; after all, she gave me something fun to mention in this blog!

My favorite way to prepare summer squash is basic. I slice it, boil it briefly, and put butter and salt on it. Yum! It’s almost as good as dancing with Marge Piercy!

Recipe for Snickerdoodles Gone Bad (Last Installment in This Series)

My grandmother and my great aunt baked the best cookies I have ever tasted. Their generation (born before 1900) knew cookies! When I was a boy, one of the towering pleasures of attending Vacation Bible School was to line up in the cool church basement on a hot spring day and to be served two cookies prepared by my grandmother and by other women of approximately her same age. How they discovered the secrets of baking is beyond me, especially when I consider that they learned to bake in hulking iron stoves with ovens fired by wood and without thermometers.

My Grandmother

Who Survived the Flu to Give Birth to My Father

While I would have a difficult time choosing a favorite cookie, I could be forced to declare my grandmother’s sugar cookie the best of the best. All her recipes have been passed down to me. There are dozens of sugar cookie formulations. I have prepared several of them, but they do not produce the cookies I remember. I keep hoping that the special sugar cookies are hiding among the recipes, but I have not yet found them. I am beginning to think that my grandmother was so adept at making them that she needed no recipe.

My Great Aunt Margaret and My Grandmother

Who Learned to Bake Cookies on Iron Stoves

Now and then, a mistake in cooking yields a delectable surprise. I once made a blunder in a snickerdoodle recipe and wound up preferring the result. The ingredients (below) include more butter than the original recipe required. My error occurred when I was doubling the recipe; I doubled the butter and forgot to double the rest of the ingredients. (Yeah, I goofed when multiplying by two. Maybe you can deduce why I did not become a math teacher.) The extra butter causes the cookies to flatten, but they have a melt-in-your-mouth crumb that is delicate and delicious. I call them “Snickerdoodles Gone Bad”!

Ingredients

1½ cup butter softened at room temperature

1½ cups sugar

2 eggs

2¾ cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp cream of tartar

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon and 2 Tbsp sugar combined

Directions

Mix at medium speed in a large bowl the butter, sugar, and eggs until light and fluffy (at least 2 minutes). Combine in a separate bowl the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt. Add these to the creamed mixture and blend them well. Refrigerate the dough at least 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 375° and combine the cinnamon and sugar. Shape the dough into 2″ balls and roll them in the cinnamon and sugar. Bake the cookies for 12–15 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet. The tops of the cookies will puff up at first then flatten. Creases will form, and the edges will brown slightly.