Memory – Page 10 – Plain and Fancy

Moments of Extreme Emotion: 100th Post Mark

January 11, 2014January 16, 2014 marianbeaman21 Comments

Today I have reached a milestone, 100 blog posts and counting. Thank you, thank you for all your clicks, views, and commentary so far. I am commemorating this event in pictures.

Sunshine and Rain by Ian Christopher Beaman — “Sunshine and Rain” by Ian Christopher Beaman

Blogging is like life, up and down, sad and happy, rain and shine, day in and day out. Here is how Ian sees his Grandma/NaNa, picturing me with a split image, one eye blue, the other rosy pink. Does he see me as both a realist and an optimist? I can only surmise because I don’t know what is going on in his six-year-old mind. The bluest eye sees cold, hard facts; the other eye views life with rose-tinted glasses. A balanced view, if you ask me! Also, if you notice, he pictures me as being fruitful too: bushels of apples in the tree.

Did I say blogging is like life? Here’s the inside scoop on what writing blog posts is really like:

But I love every minute. Really, I do!

Most importantly, I get to send stories out into the ether and then “talk” to you after the writing is posted. We make a connection.

Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and then love will be seen at its height.

E. M. Forster Howard’s End

My heart leaps up when you join the conversation.

Now it’s your turn:

What blog post is most memorable to you? What would like to see more of? Less of?

Voting is still open for My Gutsy Story.

To read the story: http://soniamarsh.com/2013/12/rising-above-the-pettiness-to-focus-on-the-positive-by-marian-beaman.html

To vote for my story: http://soniamarsh.com/2014/01/vote-for-your-favorite-december-2013-my-gutsy-story.html Thank you!

Note to Vote + Grandma’s Pork & Sauerkraut Dinner

January 2, 2014January 2, 2014 marianbeaman11 Comments

New year, new opportunity: Vote for My Gutsy Story @

http://soniamarsh.com/2013/12/vote-for-your-favorite-december-2013-my-gutsy-story.html

Haven’t read it yet? There’s still time!

http://soniamarsh.com/2013/12/rising-above-the-pettiness-to-focus-on-the-positive-by-marian-beaman.html THANK YOU!

Grandma’s Pork and Sauerkraut Dinner

As the article in the Elizabethtown Chronicle explains, my Grandma Fannie stomped cabbage by using “her old potato masher to draw moisture from cabbage in the process of making stone crock sauerkraut.” The Longenecker family always had pork and sauerkraut, along with mashed potatoes and apple sauce, for New Year’s Day as well as other times during the year.

Just like many Pennsylvania Dutch families in 2013, we observed this New Year ritual with a menu of pork & sauerkraut and mashed potatoes.

Pork basted with mixture of meat juices, minced garlic, fresh dill, onion salt and dry mustard Sauerkraut with caraway seeds; baked apples — Pork basted with mixture of meat juices, minced garlic, fresh dill, onion salt, dry mustard
Sauerkraut with caraway seeds; baked apples

Around the table, counting our blessings: “. . . . Hitherto hath the Lord helped us.” I Samuel 7:12

Your comments and mine make a conversation.

I will always reply!

Grandma’s Victorian Greeting: Happy New Year!

January 1, 2014September 9, 2014 marianbeaman16 Comments

Here is a postcard from precisely 100 years ago: Grandma Fannie Martin Longenecker’s New Year’s greeting passed down to me and then to our daughter Crista who now displays it in a frame with her holiday decorations:

They were called penny postcards for a reason!

Yes, it’s 100 years old, postmarked December 30, 1913. Notice there is no street address in a town of thousands and certainly no zip code, not instituted until the 1960s. “R.R.” means Rural Route. Dauphin County adjoins Lancaster County to the west.

Have you held on to old postcards or letters? Where do you keep them?

Inquiring minds want to know! Please join the conversation.

* * * * * * * * *

VOTING BEGINS THURSDAY for My Gutsy Story on author Sonia Marsh’s website: To read the story: http://soniamarsh.com/2013/12/rising-above-the-pettiness-to-focus-on-the-positive-by-marian-beaman.html

Voting for My Gutsy December 2013 Story begins Jan. 2 and ends Jan. 15, 2014.

Moments of Extreme Emotion Series: Curio Cabinet Explosion

December 28, 2013December 28, 2013 marianbeaman26 Comments

It was twilight.

And twilight was turning to dusk as Cliff and I sat down to eat supper.

He said, “Let’s light a candle.”

She said, “Well, that’s a good idea. It’ll look pretty.”

One of us said, “Let’s put the candle into the curio cabinet. The mirrors behind will amplify the light.”

“Okay,” said the other. And so we admire the ambient light illuminating the cups and curios.

“It would look even prettier if we closed the glass door. More shimmer and glisten.”

Just so you know: We have surrounded a lighted candle with irreplaceable china (Dumb)! The deceptively romantic light disguises the fact that the candle flame is heating the upper glass shelf (Dumber than Dumb)! We leave the dining room momentarily to clear the table.

BOOM, BANG, POW—The glass shelf shatters, and shards of glass cascade into the once placid display of nineteen antique cups, some from Grandma Longenecker, some from Mother, and some from the travels of itinerant artist Cliff.

I scream with the first boom. Then I scream louder as I survey the damage. Cups with dismembered handles.. Saucers in slices. Family heirlooms gone with a poof!

Just because a scene looks artistic doesn’t mean it‘s not dangerous.

Just because a candle is seated in a pretty place doesn’t mean the laws of combustion won’t operate.

What remains:

: Doll bell from Mother & Mug from Buckingham Palace

Japanese teacup from Grandma Annie Metzler

And a few more cups and saucers, not pictured.

Have you experienced the loss of family heirlooms? Other losses? What remains of value?

Your comments make me happy, and I will always respond.

Do read My Gutsy Story on author Sonia Marsh’s website:

http://soniamarsh.com/2013/12/rising-above-the-pettiness-to-focus-on-the-positive-by-marian-beaman.html

Voting for My Gutsy December 2013 Story begins Jan. 2 and ends Jan. 15, 2014.

The Longenecker Christmas Tree & Charlie Brown

December 21, 2013December 24, 2014 marianbeaman36 Comments

The Longenecker Christmas Tree.

Well, there was none. Not one. Not ever. Despite the fact that the Christmas song, “O Tannenbaum” is of German origin, most Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonite homes of the 1950s and 60s did not light Christmas trees. Decorated trees were lumped together with other worldly pleasures like jewelry, makeup, and movies and therefore not permitted. At least the Ray Longenecker family did not have one. We were plain and I longed for some fancy.

One year I found a limb from our maple tree out front with little branches that looked as forlorn as Charlie Brown’s tree. I brought it into the living room and tried to find trinkets and a red ribbon or two for decoration.

It was a sad little tree. It looked something like this, only wedged into our living room radiator and anchored by balled-up newspaper no doubt.

Good grief! I know how Charlie Brown must have felt. But at least his had “a wooden trunk and soft green needles” with a red ball on the end of a branch instead of a timid little ribbon.

Charlie Brown’s luck seems to change when Lucy appoints him as director of the Christmas play in which Linus reads Luke 2 from scripture. After the play, the performers migrate outdoors toward Charlie’s sagging tree. Charlie Brown eventually gets his wish for a fine Christmas tree as the gang “donate” the festive string of lights from Snoopy’s doghouse to the dress up the little tree. Charity in action.

No, there was no Christmas tree in our home or in the sanctuary of my family’s home church, Bossler’s Mennonite Church. But like Linus and friends, we heard the Christmas story from Luke 2 faithfully recited and at the end of the service, we received hand-outs of navel oranges every year, the orange orbs passed hand to hand down the rows.

Nowadays in the Longenecker-Beaman home there is a happy fir tree, bedecked with ornaments from several generations. And we all rehearse the precious old story of the nativity in the Bible passage Luke 2 on Christmas morning.

A wondrous story, plain and simple, read beside a fanciful tree.

O Tannenbaum! Longenecker-Beaman Tree 2013 — O Tannenbaum! The Beaman Tree 2013

Hark, the Herald Angels Sing, Glory to the Newborn King! Sung by Charlie Brown and friends

Add a Christmas tree tale from your past . . . or present. Join the conversation and I will add my little bit as I always do.

Merry Christmas~~Merry Christmas~~Merry Christmas!

Coming next: Purple Passages with Time and Tiny Tim

Purple Passages: December 2013 edition

December 7, 2013January 6, 2014 marianbeaman16 Comments

HOPE

Hope is a thing with feathers that perches in the soul. Emily Dickinson

Hope is like a road in the country. There never was a road, but when many people traveled it, it came into existence. Lyn Yutang

Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Hope is the power of being cheerful in circumstances that we know to be desperate. G. K. Chesterton

There is always hope when people are forced to listen to both sides. John
Stuart Mill

CHANGE

Change means something good is coming, — even if I don’t yet understand all it will mean. Joe Sherer, Missionary Messenger, November 2011

Until God opens the next door, praise him in the hallway. Orebela Gbenga

PROGRESS

You’ll be amazed how much distance you can cover taking [life] in increments. Little things add up; inches turn to miles, We string together our efforts like so many pearls, and before long . . . you have a whole string!”

Staying the Course by B. J Gallagher quoted in Wednesday, October 12, 2013 entry in Daily Devotional: The Word for You Today

DISTANCE

“Distance lends enchantment to the view,” explaining why events of our youth are enveloped in such a rosy cloud. Laura Ingalls Wilder, Little House in the Ozarks

Travel helps one see “how [American] ways look from a distance.” Molly Hughes, A London Family (1870-1900)

STRESS-BUSTER

“. . . concentrate on breathing to quell the mind’s restless forays into the past and future.” Geoffrey Cowley, “Stress-Busters: What Works” Newsweek, June 14, 1999.

Quiet zone low light, deep breaths . . . ah! — Quiet zone, low light, deep breaths . . . ah!

Try to let go of being in a state of readiness. Yoga instructor, October 2, 1999.

NIGHT-CAP

Have courage in the great sorrows of life, and patience for the small ones. And when you have laboriously accomplished your daily task, go to sleep in peace. God is awake. Victor Hugo

‘Tis the Season:

from It’s a Wonderful Life. Clarence the Angel leaves a reminder for George Bailey: “Remember, no man is a failure who has friends.”

Add a quote or respond to one you’ve just read. I look forward to your comments! And I will always reply.

Below is the link to my entry in the Gutsy Story Contest now in progress on the website of awarding-winning memoirist Sonia Marsh:

My Gutsy Story: Rising Above the Pettiness to Focus on the Positive

Moments of Extreme Emotion Series: My Marriage in Vacuum Cleaners

December 4, 2013February 21, 2015 marianbeaman16 Comments

My Marriage in Vacuum Cleaners

My mom still has the same vacuum cleaner she’s had for decades, a blue, bullet-shaped machine with a snorkel hose at one end. Think of a mechanical Dachshund, a hot dog with a waist-line problem. “It still does the job,” she says.

We are not quite as frugal or married to a brand as Mom though. As newly weds, Cliff and I bought a Filter Queen, a squatty brown thing that rolled along the floor on four little wheels, a vacuum cleaner that came with a great sales pitch: It could suck up marbles and had a Hepa filter: Picture the cone-shaped spaceship that returns from outer space, splashing down in the ocean: that’s the Hepa filter. The salesman also said it was clean enough to use on a submarine. Cliff experimented with the suck-up marble trick, but I don’t think he ever tried it on a submarine.

Vintage Filter Queen vacuum cleaner: image via eBay

A few years ago I was getting tired of my upright Kenmore vacuum, sick and tired of its spewing out more dust than sucking in. Usually we employ due diligence researching a good replacement, but Cliff was out of town on his spring tour, so I thought, “I can handle this myself . . . how hard can it be?” A woman with a mission, I went to Linens and Things, a chain store now defunct in Jacksonville, to check out my options. I totally discounted mainstays like Hoover and Electrolux sitting snugly side by side. Then I spotted a vacuum cleaner at 70 % off. (Going-out-of-business sale!) Overlooking its heft, I compared it to a cleaner parked close by in the showroom, a Dyson, my gold-standard at the time. “It would be perfect, sturdy and top of the line both,” I think.

When Husband came home, he just stared at my purchase open-mouthed and started laughing, then a wild guffaw. His comments: This thing looks like it can suck up the rug in one fell swoop. Why, it could even pull a red wagon with a child sitting in it around the block–a vacuum cleaner on steroids, that’s what it is. A turbo-charged Bissell beast!

I have to wonder: Can a vacuum cleaner help a writer find her voice?

Join the conversation. I will always respond!

Here is the link to my entry in the Gutsy Story Contest now in progress on the website of author Sonia Marsh:

My Gutsy Story: Rising Above the Pettiness to Focus on the Positive

Mom’s vegetable soup, good for what ails you

November 30, 2013September 9, 2014 marianbeaman28 Comments

When our children were little and our family visited Mother and Daddy in Lancaster County, PA , we could always count on an enamel-coated refrigerator drawer full of soup–either chicken corn or vegetable–to get us revived after a long car trip from Florida. Even now after an exhausting flight, we open the fridge and find home-made soup in one of the drawers, ready to heat up.

Mother has seldom used a recipe and when she does the proportions are often not included.

The recipe shows “potatoes” crossed out, but sometimes she adds them.

After a couple of stabs at it, I coaxed Mom into being a little more precise about measurements for her savory vegetable soup:

Start with 2 1/2 pounds of chuck roast. Sear the meat and then bake it at 350 degrees until tender. It should be nice and brown and fall apart when you jab a fork into it! Save drippings.

Cook separately: Carrots, celery and cabbage. Then add green beans, peas and corn. Be sure to keep the vegetable broth.

Now add a quart of tomato juice (preferably canned from fresh tomatoes or tin canned crushed tomatoes.)

1/2 cup Heinz ketchup. Then combine beef, cut up, into vegetable + broth mixture and simmer.

* * *

What comfort food to you associate with your mother? Another relative?

Your comments welcome. I will always reply.

Coming next week! First in a Series: Moments of Extreme Emotion with Original Art by Cliff

Thanksgiving Collection II

November 27, 2013November 27, 2013 marianbeaman13 Comments

The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth by Jennie A. Brownscombe (1914) Courtesy Wikipedia — The First Thanksgiving at Plymouth by Jennie A. Brownscombe (1914)
Courtesy Wikipedia Image

Saying grace before carving the turkey at Thanksgiving dinner in the home of Earle Landis in Neffsville, Pennsylvania 1942

This image is a work of an employee of the United States Farm Security Administration, taken as part of that person’s official duties. As a work of the U.S. federal government, the image is in the public domain.

But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord.

Jonah 2:9 KJV

Every year about this time my Dad would start handing out calendars for the new year, advertising his business, Longenecker Farm Supply. Calendars always featured something inspirational: a glossy, colored photo of a farm scene, happy children at play, or in this case, a family observing Thanksgiving. Daddy died in 1985 and after that time the business was sold, so calendars stopped. But I still keep the “Thanksgiving” calendar in its plastic cradle attached to the inside of one of my kitchen cabinets, with calendar year postings now computer-generated.

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise; be thankful unto him, and bless his name. Psalm 100:4

Happy Thanksgiving! Your comments welcome. I will always respond.

Coming soon! A new series: Moments of Extreme Emotion with Original Art by Cliff

Upright: Downright Fabulous!

November 20, 2013November 20, 2013 marianbeaman16 Comments

Last Wednesday, into my inbox popped a message which included an invitation to lunch from Karen Bruner Upright, my former student at Florida State College. The last time I saw her, she was a “surprise” visitor at Christmas, marching up the walkway to our house, book proudly in hand, with a chapter she co-wrote with a colleague.

When we first met in my college classroom, Karen was my first-year composition student on her third try at getting through the course. Though she attributes her previous failures to not going to class and not feeling motivated, from the beginning, she was a stellar student, whose essays became examples I repeatedly used as models for other students. Revealing her occupation back then as a restaurant chef, one essay in particular stands out, an illustration-type paper with the line “The heat of a commercial kitchen comes from both the ovens and the chefs” as she proceeds to describe two other chefs and herself as “the most obnoxious chef I have ever known.”

When I pointed out her writing gift, she at first stared at me blankly, almost in disbelief. She has since gone on to complete her M.B.A. degree at Purdue University and is currently employed as Systems Manager for Proctor and Gamble–and become co-author of a chapter in a book about technology for human resources. There is no end to what this woman can accomplish. Oh, and did I mention, she still loves to cook, featuring her savory concoctions on her website plannedovers.com

Along the way, Karen has also become conversant in French, every Friday calling her friend in the south of France, so she can maintain her fluency. Also, she has been featured as a Profile in Success in a college textbook by Susan Anker entitled Real Writing with Readings.

Thumbnail of page 145 in Real Writing with Readings college text, 5th ed.

Of all the students who have paraded through my classroom, Karen Upright stands at the top my list of Students Who Inspire.

Downright fabulous!

Is there some you know, like Karen, who persisted and made it through high school, college–some other challenge? Do tell us about it.

Your comments welcome. I will always reply!

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: