Remarkable Markers 1

My dear friend Eleanor Y. Stewart (with whom I have authored several books) and I drove past the Forest Hill Cemetery in Piqua, Ohio, and noticed an elk statue. We decided to investigate. What a spectacular work of art! The animal stood proudly on a rock. The majestic creature transfixed us.

Elk Monument, Forest Hill Cemetery, Piqua, Ohio

Elk are native to North America and to eastern regions of Asia. The first Europeans to come to America named the animal “elk” (European word for moose) because they thought the elk resembled a moose. The elk is one of the largest mammals in North America. It feeds on plants, leaves, and the bark of trees.

Author Eleanor Y. Stewart Standing Beside Elk

In Piqua, Ohio’s Forest Hill Cemetery

We found that the magnificent statue represented Lodge 523 of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and honored lodge members interred in the cemetery. Members of the organization are pledged to help children lead healthy lives, to underwrite humanitarian projects, and to honor the service of our veterans.

Elk in New Home Dedication Booklet, September 1950

And Golden Anniversary Celebration, 1899–1949, Piqua, Ohio

After Eleanor posed for a photograph beside the elk, we spent an hour examining other markers. We enjoy visiting such memorial gardens to search for exceptional statuary and stone carving. To us, a stroll around a cemetery is an adventure, for we never know what we will find. I suppose that we are taphophiles, or tombstone tourists.

Eleanor suggested that I compose a series of blogs about uncommon markers such as the elk. We agreed to get together for brief trips to seek extraordinary memorials in other cemeteries. As both Eleanor and I appreciate animals, other monuments must be especially remarkable to measure up to the grandeur of the elk in our estimation! Watch to see what we found!

One installment of this blog will feature a marker that Eleanor and I visited a few years ago when we were on a research trip to Marion, Ohio. I look forward to sharing information about it.

Meanwhile, we continue to admire the Piqua elk, which has ornamented Forest Hill Cemetery throughout the seasons and across the years.   

Vehicles I Remember: 1951 GMC Pickup

The first pickup that I remember was a 1951 GMC. It was rated a half-ton model, but it had a ¾-ton bed. My father kept it seemingly forever! It must have run well, as I have no memory of it in a repair shop. It was a silvery pale blue. It boasted a 1940s underdash heater that was an aftermarket installation by Glen Bisel, who owned the Sinclair station in my hometown; he found it in a wrecked Oldsmobile car. The heater was shaped like a shield and had two doors with round metal doorknobs. When a door was opened, the heat poured out. Actually, the heat poured out even when the doors were closed! I always sat between my father and my brother on the bench seat. The heater was close to my knees. On bitterly cold winter days, the heat felt good; otherwise, the heat was too intense, and I compulsively drew my knees back into the seat as far from the heater as I could get.

My Father and the 1951 GMC Pickup

On a farm, a pickup truck gets constant use; for that reason, I have scores of memories of the faithful old GMC! My father often chose a rainy day to load two or three hogs to take to the market. If the loading went well, my father would not sustain a scratch; frequently, though, he had to wrestle with the pigs to get them up and into the bed of the pickup, and he would be cut. As my father bled freely from even the smallest nick, he would soon have a trail of blood over the back of his hand or on his forearm. Once the pigs were loaded, he would run to the house to wash his hands and coat his scratches with tincture of merthiolate (an antiseptic in a bottle with a thin glass tube attached to the lid). The tincture left orange stains. My father would hop behind the wheel, and we would be on our way to one of the livestock sale barns near our home.

The rain would slosh across the windshield from side to side as the wiper blades worked back and forth in a lazy rhythm. I was a youngster sandwiched between my father and my brother. I would listen to their conversation and the peaceful beat of the raindrops. Our damp clothing and the scents of earth within the cab mingled in waves of tropical heat exuding from the heater slung beneath the dashboard. Slowly but surely, I would fall asleep.

That sleep was the soundest sleep that a boy could have! I wish I could experience such tranquility today! I felt secure and toasty warm. I assumed that life would go on like that forever.

Of course, life didn’t go on in that same way, but I have the memories of that comfortable time when I was really young. Such recollections sustain me now.

I can hardly conclude without mentioning that I often washed and waxed the good ol’ GMC. In waxing and polishing vehicles from the decades of the 1950s and 1960s, jammed fingers were always a possibility. Where I most often rammed my fingers into a space too small for them on the GMC was between the back fender and a vertical support for the pickup bed. My hand would smoothly slip down the rounded curve of the fender and get caught near the bottom of the curve. Ouch! No matter how many times I told myself not to do that, I did it anyway!

What would I not give to return to the 1950s for another ride in that GMC truck? Maybe my father would be hauling sacks from the feed store in town to our storage shed for livestock. The sun would be shining, the heater would be turned off, and we would be sharing a small bottle of Coca-Cola. How did I let those wonderful days slip away?   

Vehicles I Remember: 1950 Chevrolet

The first car in my memory was a 1950 Chevrolet. It was black. In front of the regular windows on the driver’s side and passenger’s side were triangular windows (wing vents) that could be turned in such a way as to force a blast of wind against the face. That breeze felt so good on a hot day! The windshield was in two halves joined by a thin metal connector moulding. As a child, I always experienced motion sickness, which was far worse if I were in the back seat. Even when I was lucky enough to sit in front, my eyes would focus first on the metal moulding then on the distant view then on the connector again, until I was well on my way toward nausea!

My Mother, My Brother, and the 1950 Chevrolet

My parents drove differently. My father was far-sighted and enjoyed perusing fellow farmers’ fields to his left. Meanwhile, he slowly veered the car to the right until the right wheels were off the road and onto the berm. Miraculously, he never lost control of the vehicle but gradually brought it back onto the pavement, only to repeat the experiment immediately. My mother, meanwhile, played with the throttle. Her small foot, usually wearing a flip-flop in summer, wore out the gas pedal by depressing it and lifting up right away, depressing it and lifting up right away. The car lurched forward and hesitated, lurched forward and hesitated accordingly. To ride with my father at the steering wheel was less nauseating but more frightening.

One day in the good old summertime, I was riding with my mother at the wheel. Down went the gas pedal, up it went, down it went again, back up it came, and so on. I was a youngster still short enough to stand on the front seat. I was near the passenger door and was trying to keep my balance while the car briefly gained speed and momentarily slowed, gained and slowed, gained and slowed. I remember being slightly dizzy. I could smell my mother’s new permanent. (She had to have curls in her straight hair!) We were lurching and hesitating along a gravel road lined by tall corn on our right. We came to an intersection with another gravel road. My mother obeyed the stop sign, but the corn was planted so close to the road that she could not see around it. She entered the intersection only to discover that a road grader had almost entered the intersection from the right. The big machine had been hidden behind the corn. My mother slammed on the brakes, and the road grader just missed the front bumper!

The sudden braking made me lose my balance. My mouth struck the hard metal dashboard. I lost both of my upper baby teeth in the front. My mother yelled, “Why don’t you ever stand close enough to where I can grab you?”

A long time after the incident, when my two permanent teeth came in, they were separated by a gap, or diastema. Whether I liked it or not, the diastema became a trademark. I still have it, although the gap has lessened over the years. Terry–Thomas was a popular British comic film actor in American movies of the 1960s. I always enjoyed his performances because, like me, he had a pronounced diastema.

I am old enough to be mindful that young people today have such perfect teeth! When I was growing up, children lacked such gloriously white, exactly spaced teeth, the result of costly orthodontics. (Incidentally, antibiotics given for ear infections, from which I frequently suffered, turned children’s teeth yellow.) Visiting an orthodontist was just becoming an option for rural kids back then. My parents took me to one in Lafayette, Indiana, but, when they learned how expensive it would be to close the diastema in my front teeth, they asked me if I really wanted to have my incisors properly aligned. I hated dentists. With vast relief, I said that I would just as soon avoid going to the orthodontist. Also relieved, my parents did not have to pay the thousand dollars to close the gap in my teeth.

Whenever I brush my teeth, I recall the dashboard of that 1950 Chevrolet.    

Rustic Prints 5

This framed print of cows and a stream defines the word bucolic, a word with Greek roots meaning “cowherd” and “cow.” Bucolic has a synonym in pastoral, a word having multiple layers of significance relating to “pastors,” or “shepherds.” I suppose that one of my most important memories of growing up on a farm in Indiana is the peaceful sight of soft-eyed cows wading in sparkling creeks on sultry summer afternoons.

Framed Rustic Print of Cows and a Brook

That sight was repeated around every bend of a country road. When I was a youngster, most farms were far smaller than they are today, and they were diversified in old-fashioned ways that now seem quaint. By diversified, I mean that farms raised crops but a wider variety of crops than they now raise and that farms raised livestock—which many farms no longer raise. I recall fences. Lots and lots of fences. They were necessary to discourage cows and pigs and sheep from straying into the gravel roads. I recall hardwood trees amid the fences bordering the edges of fields; today, most of those trees have been removed to enable huge farm machines to till the soil as close to the edge of the roads as possible. I recall chickens, ducks, geese, turkeys, and guinea hens, some of which did stray into the gravel roads. … but most cars and trucks traveled at slower speeds back then, and most drivers were more alert to the possibility of encountering chickens in the way.

Oh, such courteous and civilized drivers as there were in those days! Friendly drivers, who waved at you, and you waved back. Kind drivers, who left a respectful distance between their front bumpers and your back bumper. … but I digress.

When my family drove anywhere, our car passed several creeks, often ornamented with cows, which I have always considered especially sculptural. The bodies of cows are graceful, and their tranquil eyes can melt the hardest hearts.

A chore that I enjoyed was encouraging the dairy cows to come to the barn for milking in the evening. I think back to summer evenings steeped in a golden haze. I strode to the east of the barn along a curving dusty path that the cows had made. To both sides were meadow plants, which, in the heat of the day, had the fragrance of a rich tea. I found the Holsteins gathered in the shade of an oak. Chewing their cud and casually switching their tails at flies, they looked at me expectantly. Soon, the lead cow, who had assumed the dignified station of leading the rest, came toward the serpentine path on which I stood waiting. One by one, the other cows fell into line in an order that they recognized among themselves. I brought up the rear. As the cows and I walked back toward the barn, I gazed ahead. The black-and-white hips of the cows gently swayed from side to side, and I heard the muffled beat of hooves in the thin dust. When the parade reached its destination, my father guided the pets into their stalls, and the milking began. I used the word pets just now because my father treated his dairy cows as pets, and they were as coddled and affectionate as dogs.

Accordingly, whenever I see this rustic print, all such reminiscences—and more—flow back to me. No wonder I appreciate such illustrations from earlier eras!

Why I Plant Raspberries

One of my favorite memories of growing up was when my mother went berrying in the summer. My brother and I piled into the car, and our mother drove to a deserted farm that had become overgrown with blackberry vines. Except for being startled by an occasional snake, we spent a dreamy morning peacefully filling our buckets with plump berries—and eating more than we dropped in our buckets! I say “dreamy” because there is no way to race through a patch of berries. Thorns cover the canes, and the picker of berries must be as graceful as the canes themselves and proceed with slow, thoughtful movements, if scratches are to be avoided.

Now I grow red raspberries, and they are among the easiest plants to establish. My raspberries have been taking over large sections of my yard for several years now, and I don’t mind a bit! They supply me with seemingly endless streams of berries in those wonderful hot months that bring out the fullest flavor of raspberries. I am reminded of Walt Whitman, the great American poet whose work was the focus of my dissertation, and whose life and poetry were the subject of one of my courses that I taught for many exuberant years; In Specimen Days for June 21 in 1882, Whitman wrote about his “favorite dish, currants and raspberries, mixed, sugar’d, fresh and ripe from the bushes—I pick ‘em myself.” The canes form artistic arches. Where they touch the soil, they form roots. The part with the roots can be cut from the rest of the cane and given a shallow planting, thereby expanding the berry patch with minimal effort.

A Few Jars of My Raspberry Jam

 

Berries form on two-year-old canes. After harvesting the berries, I cut away the canes that held them. I am careful to leave the springy, new canes that have not yet borne fruit; those canes will give me the next year’s crop. Hsün Tzu (whose name is often given as Xunzi) was born around 313 or 310 BC and died between 238 and 220 BC; philosophers often include his work with that of Confucius and Mencius in the development of Confucian thought. Hsün Tzu wrote about a raspberry vine standing upright without needing to be staked; his metaphor represented Confucius who, at age 70, had perfectly blended his inborn nature and his philosophical training. I hope, when I am that age, my thinking and my nature will likewise be indistinguishable from one another; for the time being, I can opine that the selection of a raspberry vine to represent a well-respected philosopher is most fortunate! The supple cane—grounded yet free, arching delicately, and bringing health and happiness—is joyously symbolic of wisdom.  

Dried red raspberry leaves can be steeped in boiling water for fifteen minutes to form a “tea” that can be effective as an eye wash. I am told that such use of an infusion of dried raspberry leaves was practiced among some groups of Native Americans. The astringent quality of the tannin in the leaves helps to heal styes. Many websites describe the benefits of raspberry leaves for pregnant women.

Morning is the best time to harvest raspberries, provided that they are not wet. In the hours before the sun beats down on them, they offer their richest taste.