Nostalgia

An Oasis of Tradition (and some Cathartic Pumpkin Carving!)

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pumpkin 3 escape adulthood

Courtesy of escapeadulthood.com

pumpkin 1 pumpkin2So this isn’t a generic pumpkin-carving post. It’s about how carving pumpkins, in additional to being entertaining and leading to some pretty cool jack-o-lanterns, can be cathartic too.

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Ma, enjoying the process of carving out her pumpkin’s eye, LOL

Consider this picture of my dear, very sweet, normally-without-a-violent-bone-in-her-body mother about twenty years ago, when we were carving pumpkins out in the back yard. She’s having a good time carving her pumpkin’s face…and maybe getting out a little aggression too, LOL. My father is clearly enjoying the moment, too.

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Me and Pa another year, with finished pumpkins on the front steps

Year after year, we’d all have a good time, and it’s an example of the kind of fun I’ve tried to create with my own kids as the years have passed.

Traditions are important. They provide a little bit of something to count on, year to year, when the landscape and the world keeps changing around us (as it inevitably does). We have these moments to recreate and fall back on, to re-center ourselves, bring us back to our roots, and reclaim a little of all the different times in our lives that we participated in them.

Of course traditions come in all forms, whether for other holidays, birthdays, or just things like apple-picking or preparing favorite recipes. Sometimes they are the bridge between people who have drifted apart, giving them a reason to reconnect.

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Me around 25 years ago, sitting on the top of the “school bus shelter” Pa built at the bottom of the driveway, kept company by a giant pumpkin and the little orange cat my parents took in

I love traditions, and I’ll probably be writing more about them – at least the ones I’ve cherished – in the future. But for now, since we’re at the end of October, I’ll stick with this one. Although time marches on, our traditions only have to disappear or change if we want them to.

What are some of your favorite autumn traditions, whether for Halloween or not?

The Old Button Tin

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My mother’s old button tin (a reused, 1950’s Christmas cookie tin), a box of threads and some old “Bondex” iron-on material from the 1960’s

When I was little, I was always fascinated, watching my mother sew. She could hand sew or sew on the machine.

To me it was magic. I learned in later years, that it was necessity. With seven kids to raise on just my father’s salary (at least until I was a teen and my mother started a second career in the insurance industry and worked her way up to a CPCU license), it was more economical for my mother to craft many of our clothes and other items by hand than it was to buy them ready-made. Continue Reading…

Nostalgic Music

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big band

Credit: Blubrry Podcast Community

I took a ride to my hometown, this past weekend, to re-deliver my mother to The Homestead where I grew up after she’d been out of state for several weeks, visiting one of my older sisters.

I took my husband’s vehicle, which has a year’s worth of satellite radio available, and since my iPod wasn’t working, I started to play with the dial and found one of my bittersweet loves: 1940’s music.

This is probably another area where I’m a bit strange, since continue reading…

Vintage Cookbooks

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cookbook frontI love cookbooks. I must have upwards of 50 of them, tucked in my “cookbook cupboard” or lined on my little “cookbook shelf” under the slot in the kitchen cabinetry where the microwave oven is.

I collect them and enjoy trying recipes from them.

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Women’s Day Encyclopedia of Cookery cookbook set

But my all-time favorite is a set my parents gave me about 15 years ago.

It’s the same exact set my mother often used when I was growing up (and my mother, I have to say, is a consummate cook…she can do fancy and five-course, or simple and filling. We had the simple and filling most often when I was growing up because, well, there were nine of us to feed every day, and only one salary).

 

 

As a kid, I loved this set, not only because its publication year was the one in which I was born, but also because it came in encyclopedia form, and I was the kind of kid who read everything. These books are stuffed full of interesting history and information about the various ingredients, foods, and the cultures that inspired them. Plus, the title has Cookery in it. I love that word in and of itself. cookbook closeup

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Luscious pictures of cakes from the “chocolate” section

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Awesome 1960’s illustration from the same “chocolate” section

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and it’s got pictures and illustrations, too, all delightfully vintage. Which means, I guess, that I’m vintage too, since the books are as old as me. 🙂

 

 

I really enjoy looking up recipes (there’s an awesome homemade custard recipe, pies, breads, holiday foods…and of course recipes from just about every culture in the world that you can imagine, since it’s an encyclopedia of cooking).

 

 

corn chowder

Today, I looked in Volume 3 to find a quick recipe for corn chowder, since that’s what my kids really wanted for lunch (and I knew I had the ingredients – or some that were close enough – on hand). A few minor substitutions later (i.e. diced ham instead of salt pork, and regular milk instead of evaporated), and I had lunch ready for them.

Anyone else have a favorite cookbook – or set?

A Little Cup of Happy…

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Vintage Maxwell House Coffee ad

I’m not sure why ads like these from the 1940’s and 1950’s make me feel happy.

I wasn’t even born until the later half of the ’60’s. My mother, who was in her 20’s during the 1950’s, tells me her memories of the defined gender roles, limitations in career and other options for women etc. – and I have no desire to live in that context, preferring the freedoms and opportunities available to American women in this decade.

But vintage pictures like this coffee ad still make me feel a little nostalgic. Maybe it’s the (likely false) idea of a simpler time. In memory it looks lovely and easier to navigate, but in reality it would probably be stifling. Still, the era – and everything that came after it – are all part of the fabric of who we are here and now…

I don’t have the same affinity for any other decade of the 20th century – not even my heyday decade of the ’80’s.

I guess I’ll just leave off my efforts to figure it out for now, and just enjoy the way it makes me feel…happy. 🙂

 

Early Autumn Tradition

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I’m the kind of person who loves traditions.

When I was a kid, I loved – no, I guess needed – routine. I liked to be able to count on things, and I thrived on the sense of security my parents and large family of sisters (there were seven of us total, no brothers) provided. Change rattled me, so much so that when two of my older sisters left suddenly, according to my six-year-old perspective (one for college, and one who basically eloped), it threw me for a tailspin emotionally that almost prevented me from finishing my first grade year.

That sounds ominous, I know, and perhaps makes this blog post sound like it’s going to be about doom and gloom, but it’s not.  Everything worked out, and life went on more or less smoothly in the long run (well, I’m still a little odd, but that’s just me, LOL).

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Apple Orchard near my home, picture taken in September 2014

This blog however, is about a tradition I’ve enjoyed for decades and that is one of the perks of growing up and living in upstate New York: Apple-picking! I’ve gone apple-picking every single year of my life. In fact, the joke around my house now is that if we don’t go apple-picking, I don’t make any apple pies that year. Except it’s not a joke. ‘Cause that’s my rule and I’m sticking to it. 🙂

I’m not fussy, though. We don’t have to go to a full blown “real” apple orchard like the one pictured at the left. In fact, before I was married we hardly ever went to a commercial orchard. No, we’d take a drive north to Buck Hill and the state land there, where there was a wild apple orchard, created by nature. The apples were almost always smaller than apple orchard fruit, or pocked and imperfect in other ways – but they also had no pesticides on them and they were tart and crisp, resulting in pies, applesauce, and other baked goods that tasted amazing.

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Pa took this picture of the apple tree in the front yard, full of fruit

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Shaking the tree for fruit

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Me with the apple-picker and a bag full of fruit

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Kitchen at the Homestead, with the long table and Pa at his usual place, just before supper

My parents eventually planted two apple trees in their yard, one in the front, and one in the back, of different varieties. These ended up being very similar to those we’d find in the wild (probably because my father never sprayed them with chemicals). Still plentiful like in commercial orchards, but smaller and imperfect on the outside.  The picture on the left is from quite a few years back, when my father was still alive, and one sister and I  gathered with our families one weekend at the Homestead to pick apples and have supper with Pa and Ma.

Here I am, getting ready to use the apple-picker lying on the ground near me (more on that handy tool in just a minute) and finally just below is one of Pa in his place at the table, talking to my sister before supper.
Okay, so here’s more about the apple-picking tool: When I was dating my soon-to-be-husband, he’d come to visit me at the Homestead, and we’d pile into the van to drive up past Steuben and a Revolutionary War monument there where a tall, wild apple tree with gorgeous golden apples grew. My husband earned a reputation for his skill at wielding that awkward-but-very-useful apple-picking tool….a long wooden handle topped with a curved, coated wire “basket” of sorts, with little spiky fingers of wire to help grasp the high fruits, pluck them from the branch, and bring them safely to the ground. Maybe it’s because he’s tall and has strong arms and back (yeah, I love my guy!), but he could get to just about any apple I asked him to get for me. 🙂

applepicking with Pa

Pa and me, having a good time – and sampling the fruit – at an orchard years ago)

Over the years, apple-picking has become a beloved tradition that is more about the family and memories made together, than it is about the fruit we gather and pies  or other baked goods that result.  Pa’s death brought those memories into even sharper focus, knowing there will be no new ones to add to the collection.

Mary and Ma 2014 applepicking edited

Me and Ma at the commercial orchard near my home this past weekend…taking a ride on the tractor back to the apple barn!

And so each year the act of going apple-picking, whether at an orchard, at the Homestead, or in the wild, is both familiar and new – a kaleidoscope of images, feelings, laughter, and the comfort of sharing a simple pleasure with loved ones, and I’m so thankful for the many years I happy times I can think back on.

Traditions like these mark the moments in our lives, giving context to the whole and adding to the beauty of the tapestry. When times are challenging, such memories can bring joy that helps to balance out the rest.

As you can see, I’m a believer in the beauty and value of traditions. 🙂 Seasonal or otherwise, do you have any that you love?

Autumn Nostalgia

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Autumn field on my drive into work

“Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night; and thus he would never know the rhythms that are at the heart of life”

~Hal Borland

So I’ve been feeling nostalgic lately. Autumn, while always my favorite time of year, tends to bring out this emotion in me. Of course, it’s never too far from the surface, anyway. It just seems that the shifting of seasons from the warmth and vibrancy of summer to the cooler evenings and richer colors and textures of fall add an accent note to it all.

Life is incredibly busy at my house. Between my husband’s and my full-time jobs (outside of usual office hours, his requires a bit of travel, mine requires lots of planning and paperwork), our two teenagers with their schedules, homework, sports, or emotional upheavals of various life stages, visiting my widowed mother-in-law in the Alzheimer’s facility a half hour away, or talking on the phone with (and trying to see more frequently) my own widowed mother, the minutes, hours, and days seem to rush by. And then there’s my writing. It’s an integral part of who I am, and so I need to take the time to put some words on the page every day.

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Autumn colors outside my back kitchen door

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The road into the valley where my school district is nestled in the foothills of the Adirondack Mountains, Upstate New York

Lately, I’ve been trying to consciously slow down. To notice world around me (even if it’s outside my back door or on the drive to my school district!) I’m also fortunate to live and work in an area not too unlike the place I grew up, with plentiful fields, and trees, and woodlands, wildlife and bodies of water that are easily accessible.

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Horses in a field on my drive to work one morning

There is so much beauty around me, and I’ve resolved not to let the days slip by without taking a few minutes, some deep breaths, and undertaking an effort to cultivate deliberate attentiveness to see it and appreciate it. Nature and I have always had a special connection (well, I’ve had one to her…not sure how she feels about me, LOL). If I’m away from Nature for too long, I feel the absence at an elemental level.

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Corn field in the sun on my way to work

I hear many around me who say they enjoy the colors and activities of autumn, yet they feel a sense of dread and a little bit of darkness creeping into their outlook at the same time, since autumn is the precursor to winter (which around here can indeed be brutal in temperatures and snowfall amounts). But I can’t agree with that philosophy. There is something to be said about appreciating the moments of every season, whether it be in the midst of summer’s white-hot glory, winter’s icy beauty, spring’s fresh verdancy or autumn’s golden bounty. As Mr. Borland noted, they comprise the “rhythms that are at the heart of life.”