Uncategorized – Page 23 – Plain and Fancy

Signs and Wonders

August 7, 2013August 7, 2013 marianbeaman10 Comments

Central California Coast in Pictures

SIGNS

Pilgrim Way Books, Carmel, CA — Pilgrim Way Books, Carmel by the Sea, CA

Spotted at Mission Ranch Restaurant, owned by Clint Eastwood, Carmel, CA

WONDERS

Our wonderland along the central California coast was bounded by Monterey Beach, CA to the north and Pismo Beach, CA to the south.

Succulents along the street on the way to the huge rock jutting as if out of nowhere along Morro Bay:

Nestled in the hills at San Simeon, Randolph Hearst’s Castle, a world-class historic house museum.

The Dining Room is elegant with casual touches: a bottle of ketchup and a jar of mustard for guests amid all the silver, crystal, and china. Paper napkins in vases too. Shabby chic? I don’t think so. Practical luxury!

Elephant seals, reclaimed from near-extinction, now thrive along the central California coast.

Most hotels had fireplaces and we used ours constantly at night. Sweaters and jackets were part of our daily outfit. We never turned on the TV.

As diarist Samuel Pepys would say, “And so to bed.”

Sunset in Cambria, California

Daniel 4:2

I thought it good to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me.

In Praise of Tree Guys

August 3, 2013August 3, 2013 marianbeaman8 Comments

3 Stories in One

The certified arborist surveys the 16 tall oaks on our property in Florida and pauses at one: “I don’t like the looks of that tree,” he warns. “Its bark looks splotchy and the ground around it feels spongy.” He taps near the root with his steel-toed boot. “Do ya hear that. It sounds hollow.” Every homeowner wants to hear a hollow tree sound. Right?

Most of Jacksonville is flat, but our property is situated on a hill with magnificent live oaks, most of which can live for centuries. But laurel oaks have far different life spans of 60 – 80 years. The twin to this laurel oak tree laid itself down to rest about 1½ years ago the day after Christmas beside our house grazing only a small corner of the roof. Minimal damage then. We were so fortunate.

“I’d take this one down right away unless you want it to carve a canyon in your house.” He points to the second-floor master bedroom in harm’s way. Now willing to exchange the thousands of dollars for tree removal for the tens of thousands of house repairs or a tragic death, we schedule tree surgery. That’s when we meet the tree guys. In the pecking order of blue collars, tree people probably rank below plumbers and electricians. The older ones methinks even look like trees, gnarled and burly. The younger ones are wiry, muscular, all highly coordinated.

The most talented one to mount our tree has teeth that look like they’ve been pushed into his gums by a cartoon dentist, but talented he is: balancing his body expertly at 80 feet, adjusting cords with perfect tension between himself and the ground crew, judging the exact angle to make the incision. They get the job done with no casualties. Finishing up, they haul off the boulder logs, rake the droppings, reconstitute my bird bath with finesse. Praise be to the tree guys!

Praise be to the Creator of trees:

We fly from Florida to California for a change of scenery, exchanging live oaks and pines of Jacksonville for the cedars and eucalyptus of the Monterey peninsula, Florida heat and humidity for day-time temperatures in the mid 60s.

Marvelously fashioned by the Creator God as well, cedar trees on the Pacific coast exude the fragrance of the hope chest from my girlhood, and the pungent eucalyptus, a balm for respiratory problems.

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not whither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. Psalm 1:3

Uh oh, what happened next . . . ?

We spot some explorers on the rocks of the bay. “That looks like fun,” I think. My shoes are sturdy and the rocks jutting out into the bay seem dry. But things go south fast. The next thing I know, I’ve gone topsy-turvy in a twisted side-ways posture onto a huge rock. The first thing I think of is the Medic Alert commercial, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!” No, that’s a lie. It’s the second thing. The first thing I think of is “Have I broken any nails?” Well, I have, but now I see a skinned knee with hands oozing blood. Slowly, I hoist myself up and gingerly pick my steps back to the car for band-aids.

The tree guys, precariously suspended between heaven and earth, were trained and experienced, knew the dangers, and had back up in case of a mis-step. But not me. I saw the warning sign, ignored it, imagining I could beat the odds. My gamble did not pay off this time, so I suffered the consequences.

Praise be to the tree guys! And to the Creator of gorgeous scenery. And to lessons learned the hard way.

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Night of Joy

July 31, 2013August 13, 2015 marianbeaman13 Comments

The whole family crams into the gray 1951 Studebaker: Our family of five, Daddy, Mommy, Janice Jean and I (Mark isn’t born yet), Aunt Ruthie and Grandma–seven stuffed into an airplane cockpit, it feels like. We don’t take two cars because we are frugal. It saves gas if we all go together.

Tonight is the first night of the Brunk Tent Revival. Two brothers, George, the evangelist, and Lawrence, the song-leader, have brought a huge, unstriped tent all the way from Virginia in a tractor-trailer truck. As we approach the tent, I think we’re going to a circus except that there are pine plank benches crunched down on sawdust and spiral-bound, red, white, and powder blue songbooks on the seats. The crowd, of course, doesn’t look like circus-goers. They are polite, plain people, some pious-acting, but others even laughing. I notice the pig-tailed girls I play with when we have a “bunch” over for Sunday dinner: there are the Garber sisters, the Oberholtzers, the Brubakers, and Kraybills. We exchange shy smiles and find seats by families.

Since I was six weeks old, I have been taken to Bosslers’ Mennonite Church way out in the country where roads run at right angles according to each farmer’s acreage. In the corner of a white hanky, my mother always ties a shiny copper penny that I put into the little metal pig in my Sunday School class when we say, “Dropping, dropping, dropping, drop-ping, hear the pennies fall, every one for Jesus, He will take them all.” I like the pictures of Jacob and the Ladder of Angels or Joseph and his Coat of Many Colors I paste into my lesson book. We gather in the meetinghouse for sermons amply illustrated with biblical quotes from our pastor, Martin Kraybill. He is intent on inscribing our mental tapes with scriptural quotations. I am just beginning to join in with the four-part harmony I hear, blending with the sopranos and altos from the women’s side, and the tenors and basses on the men’s side of the aisle: I like the way the basses move up the scale to join the tenors in the hymn “More Holiness GIve Me” and the way the sopranos and altos get to sing two bars of music without the bass clef in “O Worship the Lord.”

Tonight at the revival service we also sing a cappella, keeping pace with the song-leader’s energetic gestures. Then Brother Brunk comes to the lectern, a hefty Bible in one hand. He starts off with a joke or silly comment, which my Grandpa Metzler criticizes with the comment, “He even makes the people laugh!” He then preaches about our guilt because of sin and God’s loving plan to save us through his Son Jesus. His words pierce my consciousness, and a sense of need fills my heart. I can visualize Jesus standing before me with outstretched arms.

Will you receive Jesus into your heart and have Him cleanse you of your sin tonight? Now is the day of salvation. Come to Jesus now!”

The invitation for people to come forward sounds like an appeal directed only to me. I begin to cry softly, tears falling onto the lap of my lavender and white dotted Swiss dress, hoping someone will pay attention and tell me what to do next. I cry louder and notice my parents discussing what to do with Marian. Daddy walks with me down the aisle and ushers me into a “prayer room,” a miniature tent off to the side. There I meet kind Anna Ruth Breneman who shows me more Bible verses and prays short phrases that I repeat, asking Jesus to come into my heart, take away all my sin and fill me with new life. I feel cleansed, happy, relieved.

There is another step in the process. Next, I am led to a platform where I as a nine-year-old make my first public speech, a testimony of four simple words: “I’m glad I’m saved.” Aunt Ruthie meets me after the benediction and gives me a kiss on the cheek, which takes me by surprise. She has never before shown much affection. Apparently she approves of my decision.

On the way home, I sit on the back seat next to the window and look up at the clear, starry sky and full harvest moon. I feel euphoric. Later on, I go to bed and see that same moon casting a shaft of pure radiance in through the window-panes, bathing the oak headboard with mellow light. It traces the interlocking circular patterns punctuated by an upright sprig of laurel on each bedpost. Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright with the shaft of light that has penetrated the panes of glass magnifying the joy in my heart.

Years later, I learn that the proper word for this moment is epiphany, a manifestation of divinity in the life of a simple, trusting, Mennonite girl.

Mennonites and Uncle Sam

July 27, 2013January 30, 2015 marianbeaman9 Comments

The Martin clan gathers together for large family meals at my Grandma Longenecker’s house because Grandma, the oldest in her family, is a wonderful cook and has an enormous kitchen. Everybody likes Grandma, my dad’s mother. Grandma Fannie was a Martin and the Martins are Brinsers, formerly a part of a plain sect called the “River Brethren.” Source

They are not nearly as plain as my mother’s side of the family, except for Great Uncle Joe’s wife Bertha whose covering is cut squarish. Bertha and Joe have two daughters, Honey and Mary. I press my nose to the window anticipating their arrival. They look like peacocks, favoring vivid purples, blues and greens. And always with a floaty fabric like silk, crepe, or challis. I’m determined to be a fancy girl like them someday.

Aunt Ruthie with fancy Mary Martin Landis and husband

Just as important, though, is what they talk about around the table and afterwards: Politics! And with a pipe. After dinner, cousin Sammy and I will play our little game with Uncle Joe and whoever he’s talking to. We know that Uncle Joe nearly burns his fingers with a lighted match as he talks about the world going up in smoke. In our little game, we try to hold our breath without passing out while he lights the match, tamps down the tobacco, ignites it, and blows out the match. Sammy and I are perched on the stairs behind the mahogany banister to watch today’s performance. Right now below us Uncle Joe is talking to my Dad about old Joe Sta-leen, the Russian Premier.

Striking the match, Uncle Joe exclaims to my dad, “Ya know, Ray, I felt a little uneasy when Truman and the Democrats were in the White House, but now that Eisenhower has taken over, things are looking better for us.” Sammy and I both take a deep breath and try to hang on for the duration.

“Eisenhower is a good, old Pennsylvania Dutchman,” my dad says. “Did you know his mother was a Mennonite from Gettysburg?”

The match between Joe’s thumb and index finger is half-burned, and he has made no effort to light his pipe yet. “Jah,” says Uncle Joe, “That’s what they tell me. We can’t trust those Russians. They’d just as soon bomb us as . . . .” On and on he goes, but he’s edged the match close enough to the pipe tobacco to blow his breath in and out a couple of times. Sammy’s face is starting to look like a red balloon and I nearly start to giggle. If we can just hang on for a few more seconds, . . . our cheeks puff out more and more with unexpelled air.

The match is charred to the absolute edge of Uncle Joe’s fingertips. Any second now he’ll singe his fingers. I hear the slow ticking of the grandfather clock in the corner, adding suspense. With one more deep inhalation, though Joe sucks in, touches the match light to the fragrant tobacco mix, blows out the fire, and a swirl of blue smoke entwines my dad and Uncle Joe in their version of politics.

With one second to go, danger is averted, and Sammy and I catch another deep breath, so we can take turns sliding down the banister again.

In spite of their fervor, my elders believed a myth: Eisenhower’s mother was actually not a Mennonite. Yes, she had Mennonite (River Brethren) ancestry, but she herself was a Jehovah’s Witness. Source

And further, their stance as Anabaptists and pacifists was politically ironic: the President they so avidly supported was a military man, a 5-star general to boot, so opposed to the attitude of non-resistance my people embraced.

A few years later, some of the rich farmland of northern Lancaster County was threatened by a proposed air base. A delegation of plain people including my dad, Grandma, and Uncle Joe, dressed up and drove to Washington D.C. to make their case with government officials.

Sadie Greider, Grandma, and Daddy

In the end, further investigation found that there were sinkholes (sinkholes!) on the farm land, making it unsatisfactory as a site for a military air base. The land spared, they thanked God Almighty.

Southern Friends Meet PA Dutch Dish

July 24, 2013July 24, 2013 marianbeaman32 Comments

Plan A

The sweet aroma of ham-loaf baking wafts through the house as I hurry to welcome my Southern friends at the front door. They are in for a real treat: ham-loaf from Wenger’s Fine Meats in Elizabethtown, PA brought shrink-wrapped in my suitcase on the plane,

My menu will replicate my mother’s, a superb Lancaster County Mennonite cook if there ever was one. Even at 95, she still makes some family meals:

Melon balls with citrus mint
Ham-loaf
Dinner rolls
Bread and butter pickles
Buttered peas & carrots
Mashed potatoes with fresh chives
Frozen lemon cream pie
Coffee

The table is set with formal elegance: wedding china and crystal with a lemony centerpiece:

My friends are genuine Southern belles: Not a gray hair among them, their diamonds are real, their speech soft: “How y’all doin’? and “Bless yah heart!” is part of their verbal repertoire. They have given me an education in southern emBELLishments, so this evening I plan to guide the conversation by asking questions. Growing up, did you meet Mennonites? What was your impression? Do you know what Mennonites believe?

But my plans dissolve as I am greeted by friends with party hats, balloons, and sparkly gift bags, gleeful that they have surprised me royally. My birthday is five days away, but—bless their hearts!—they know it’s never too early to party. They produce smart-phones and iPads to capture the moment as I embrace Plan B:

Table conversation takes a different track from the one planned, and how glad I am that it does. We dish about vacation plans, family, embarrassing moments, dreams. We don’t weigh words! Then we enjoy dessert after I open presents and read more about Plan B from the memo pad gift:

Plan A is always my first choice . . .

the one where everything works out.

But more often than not, I find myself dealing with

the upside-down version

where nothing goes as it should.

It’s at this point the real test

of my character comes in. . .

Do I sink or do I swim?

Do I wallow in self-pity

or do I simply shift gears and

make the best of the situation?

The choice is mine.

Life really is all about

how you handle Plan B.

— Suzy Toronto

Each one of us around the table has had our taste of Plan B. We have all have had our share of heart-ache, disappointment, and loss. But all of us have learned to put a high priority on our faith, family, and friends. After all, “life really is all about how you handle Plan B.”

The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men / Gang aft agley, / An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain, / For promis’d joy! – Robert Burns

Does your life experience resemble Plan A or Plan B?

How has your Plan B turned out for the better or worse? Share your story.

Grandma’s: A Wedding under the Willow

July 20, 2013January 17, 2015 marianbeaman7 Comments

Here we are, Juliets without our Romeos

When Mom says “sca-doo!” at home, we know we can find amusement at Grandma’s house. Aside from the mysteries of the woods behind her house, other attractions include a slope where lilies of the valley blossom in April. A chicken house big enough to actually play house in. An out-house equipped with a Sears & Roebuck catalog for wiping, its little roof-top smothered by lilac bushes–wonderful air freshener! And a willow tree. We love that willow tree by a trickling brook where we play Bride, with a cast-off piece of netting like my mother, aunts, and grandmas use for prayer veilings.

At ten, I’m the oldest, so I direct my sisters at first. “Jeanie, go to the chicken house for the veil.” There are no chickens in Grandma’s chicken-house anymore, just a bunch of crates and wooden boards we use other times for make-believe. Jean goes off to retrieve the big square of white netting in its hiding place inside the door in a crate on the right. “Janice, let’s find some flowers for the bouquet.” Off we go in different directions, and Janice comes back with dandelion blossoms, and I find some irises.

Blue Willow book from parents early 1950s

We meet back at the willow tree, its arching fronds our sanctuary for many a glorious wedding. We need a bell ringer, a bride and a groom. Before I can get a word in edgewise, Jean pipes up, “Let me be the bride this time; I wanna be the bride, pleeease.” Well, I guess we can give in this time. Then Janice and I dicker for who plays groom and who rings the bell. Next, we have to get the bride ready.

Janice places the netting on Jean’s head just so, and I pull her pigtails up behind her ears and use the light brown braids to tie the veil securely to the top of her head. Now, we’re all set: Groom Janice loops one arm around Jean’s, and I rush over to the longest willow branch I can find and pull on its thin, sinewy length until the wedding bell chimes overhead, and then we all, including the bride, sing together in warbly voice: “Here comes the briiide, please step asiiide.” It’s a magical moment. A breeze blows gently through the willow branches and fans the bouquet of purple and gold. But before the bride has a chance to whisper, “I do,” we hear Daddy’s truck drive in the lane. He’s come to pick us up and bring home a big kettle of saffron-flavored pot pie from his mom’s stove for our supper at home on top of the hill.

There are no crystal balls to visualize our own weddings in the future, but we are careful not to duplicate color choices for our attendants. Jean starts with blue, Marian with pink, and Janice has yellow, a pleasing bouquet of hues. But our veils are white.

Up and Down Anchor Road: Secrets

July 13, 2013July 13, 2013 marianbeaman2 Comments

Home for me is bracketed by the two houses we ping-pong between: our parents house and Grandma’s house on Anchor Road. Her house is at the bottom of the hill and ours at the top.

Both houses are along side Anchor Road, between Elizabethtown to the west and Rheems to the east—centered between Harrisburg, the capital, and Lancaster, the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch country. Not long ago the road didn’t have the status of a real name. It was just Rural Delivery # 1 on the mailman’s morning route.

Why the name Anchor Road, so far inland and nowhere near water, unless you count the Susquehanna River? Years ago, Anchor Inn sat down the street, a welcoming grey hostel for guests with a barn and cornfield.

In years to come, it would sprout legs and walk backward about 200 feet propelled by huge trucks, announcing its wish for privacy as a single family home.

At the edge of the nearby village of Rheems, a bridge of concrete separates the sprawl of Heisey’s Limestone quarry on either side. On the bridge, there is a keystone-shaped metal insignia and below it inscribed the name of Rheems.

Here the road makes a hard right under the railroad overpass and on around the corner to Grandma’s house, a turn-of-the-century Victorian homestead where the extension of our family, Grandma Fannie, my Dad’s mother, and Aunt Ruthie live. On these acres is a stately house with a slate roof, sloping lawn with oaks and a birch tree for climbing, two gardens—one with strawberries and vegetables, and the other for Silver Queen sweet corn. Between the house and the railroad tracks is a woods bordered by a hill my sisters and I climb up to for raspberries in summer and sled down on our Flexible Flyers in the winter. We come here to Grandma’s when my mom says it’s rime to “sca-doo!” Sometimes my dad brings home a big kettle of pot pie from his mom’s stove for our supper.

Halfway up the hill from Grandma’s is the Hoffer’s. The place seems like a dairy farm, but I think they have only two cows, one Guernsey and one Holstein, whose milk and cream they share with us. Granny Hoffer is plainer than we are: large prayer covering with silky ribbons tied under her chin but, oddly, tiny gold-loop earrings on each lobe.

Granny pours the just-drawn milk and fills my bluish jar to the very top. Cream always dribbles out because Granny doesn’t want to give us one fraction of an ounce less than two full quarts; she calls it gospel measure. I see their dog Queenie and a lazy cat Minnie. Mom says they don’t need any more animals around the place because Granny’s son Amos and daughter-in-law Bertha fight like cats and dogs. What secrets lurk inside these walls?

Secrets revealed next time:

1. How do Lancaster County women rein in their girth in the 1950s?

2. Why do the Rentzels have a red light glowing on the porch?

3. Why did Daddy have to pull a Rheems resident from the wreckage of his car?

Purple Passages

July 10, 2013July 13, 2013 marianbeaman6 Comments

Debut of purple passages! A collection of lines from books I have read since 1989 when I began jotting them down in my journals, my 9 books of wishes, dreams, laments, and bursts of praise.

The Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary defines a purple passage as one conspicuous for its brilliance in otherwise dull writing. For this blog, I’m concentrating on only the “brilliant” part of the definition.

Although they are random in topic, I chose these quotes for at least 3 reasons: 1) they have plucked my heart-strings, 2) ignited a spark in my brain, or 3) resonated in my ear. Sometimes these ideas have even traveled to my fingers, where they become reborn as I write.

A Preview:

6.16.90 I don’t call it gossip. I call it emotional speculation. Laurie Colwin Happy All the Time

7.25.90 Auntie Ying is not hard of hearing. She is hard of listening. Amy Tan, The Joy Luck Club

5.28.92 Mr. Brook was a somewhat pastel person. (I wonder how that differs from a vanilla one?) Carson McCullers Collected Stories

6.28.93 I was sneezing through a traffic light. Son Joel on why he got a violation ticket.

12.21.95 The outline of what even well-educated people should know has been blurred past recognition by the many things we can know. Flannery O’Connor Images of Grace, Introduction

Ah, there is also a 4^th reason. I forget stuff unless I write it down. Even books I read. I had this sensation recently when I started to read (actually, re-read) neuropsychiatric Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Now who could forget reading that book and with THAT title!

In “The Curse of Reading and Forgetting,” Ian Crouch recalls having read and then unknowingly re-read parts of several books, amazed at his book-forgetting abilities. He recalls ordering a book from Amazon only to realize after encountering an episode about a cat trying to eat a snake that he’s already read THIS book. Then, he asks:

Should we reread when there is a nearly endless shelf of books out there to read and a certainly not-endless amount of time in which to do it? Should I pull out my copy of Eudora Welty’s “The Optimist’s Daughter” to relearn its charms—or more truthfully, learn them for the first time—or should I accept the loss, and move on?

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2013/05/the-curse-of-reading-and-forgetting.html

I say, accept the loss and move on. “At my back I always hear Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.”

Quotes are selected not always because I agree with them, but because they have given me cause for pause. You will be notified when new quotes are posted. Click to link to the Purple Passages menu on my blog.

1. Have you experienced the author’s sensation of having read a book before as you began to re-read it? How about movies?

2. What other “purple” quotes come to mind as you read this post?

Secrets of My Southern Friends

July 6, 2013July 9, 2013 marianbeaman8 Comments

I grew up north of the Mason-Dixon Line, in Lancaster County, PA, to be sure, but my current friends are from the South. And they have secrets to go along with their charming accents:

They . . .

1. Never, ever leave the house without makeup.

2. At pot-luck dinners, whisk away food-carrying bags the second you enter the house. (House must be picture-perfect for guests!)

3. Have a saying, “My hair color may be fake, but my diamonds are real.”

4. May have a passport showing California (?!?) as birthplace but still able to go places.

5. Have glittery, pink stun guns for self-defense.

6. Are familiar with the address of a classy target practice – for serious weapons.

7. Call mere acquaintances either “darling” or “sweetheart” especially if they can’t remember their names.

8. Adhere to the motto: Faith, family, apple pie and Chevrolet—well, maybe a Lexus.

9. Say “Yes, ma’am” or “No, ma’am” politely even when they’re mad.

10. Remember the Civil War a different way: God bless America!

Recipe for Peach Cobbler, approved by a Georgia “Peach” friend:

Peach Cobbler

Prepare first: 3 cups sliced peaches and 1 cup sugar (Mix)1 stick butter½ cup sugar3/4 cup self-rising flour

¾ cup milk

Put 1 stick of butter in a 1 ½ qt. dish and melt.Mix ½ cup sugar, ¾ cup self-rising flour and ¾ cup milk together and then pour over the melted butter.Do Not Stir!Pour fruit on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour

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Yodeling and Duets with Daddy

July 3, 2013August 20, 2014 marianbeaman12 Comments

“Keep your hand upon the throttle and your eye upon the rail,” my Dad sings in his top-of–the-lungs baritone, the volume of his voice amplified by the force of his hands on the keyboard. Every Saturday night Daddy sits down at our mahogany Marshall and Wendell upright piano in the living room and reviews songs in his repertoire. Fresh air is blowing through the open windows. Probably the whole neighborhood can hear.

Now he’s moved on to other tunes: “Turn Your Radio On” and “On the Jericho Road, on the Jericho Road, there’s for just two—no more and no less, no more and no less, just Jesus and you, just Jesus and yooooo. . . .”

I’m in the dining room studying my ninth-grade Pennsylvania history. “Marian come in here and sing a little,” he begs.

“Oh maybe after a while,” I half-promise and flee to the kitchen where my mother is standing over the stove, making salmon casserole to put in the oven while we are at church tomorrow. Even washing gooey dishes looks more appealing to me than competing with my dad’s loud volume and heavy-handedness. He attacks the piano keys like he’s hammering a bent piece of metal at his shop.

Now Janice is walking in the door, and Dad pleads, “Come on, just sing the second verse.” He wants her to join him on the long piano bench that holds piles of family photos bulging from the compartment under its lid. She sits down with him for a little bit, and I hear a soprano with a lot of tremolo join in with Daddy’s lower notes on another song: “Under His wings, under His wings, Who from His love can se-ver? Under His wings my soul shall abide, Safely abide for-e-ver.”

There’s still another sister, and when Janice moves off the bench, Jean keeps the bench warm and Daddy happily singing “Softly and Tenderly Jesus is Calling.”

Now Daddy has moved away from the piano, gotten out his shiny Gibson guitar and starts yodeling. My sisters and I think he is acting goofy: “Yodel-ay-ee-oo, yodel-ay-ee-ooo,” he bellows out joyfully as he strikes the strings of his guitar.

Click for yodeling audio

In spite of his noisy outbursts, I like the silky red cord attached to the instrument with its sunburst design veneer and the variety of colorful picks he’s accumulated. They remind me of funny-shaped tiddly-winks. Dad sure does like music. I don’t think he’d object to a piano at our church, which deems “it improper to employ instrumental music in worship and church activities.” (Article III, Section 2, Public Worship)

Last year at the beginning of eighth grade, Daddy came home and out of a clear blue sky presented me with a violin case. Looking as pleased as punch, he put the faux-leather textured black case on the dining room table, gesturing for me to open it.

“It’s for me?” I look puzzled but start to fiddle with the metal clasps on the case.

“What do you mean, is it for you? Of course, it’s for you. Why do ya think I put it here in front of you. I paid only $ 70.00 for it. Noah Klaus, up at the music store wanted more, but I told him that was my best offer. I wasn’t gonna let him horns-waggle me.”

Slowly I open the lid and see a gorgeous violin inside, a caramel-colored wooden instrument, its curvy shape tapering to a fancy scroll. I peer inside the S-shaped openings and see a paper tag with the label: Copy of Antonius Stradivarius / Handarbeit / Garmisch bei Mittenwald – Made in Germany.

“Now I want you to take lessons, so you can be in the orchestra at school. You play the piano pretty good. I don’t imagine a violin would be a whole lot harder.”

“Well, . . I don’t know about that,” I hear my voice trailing off.

I wonder why Daddy kept these plans and dreams for me to himself. I would have liked to go with him to the music store and have seen the other choices. Why does he always leave me out of decisions like this? He makes choices for me just like he plays the piano, loud and heavy-handed. Yet he seems so pleased with his purchase; I’m sure he imagines that I’m just as thrilled. Anyway, I start taking lessons from Mrs. Santeusanio.

True to his inclination, mechanical themes ran through much of my Dad’s repertoire, songs of railroads, highways, and ships (Let the Lower Lights Be Burning). Why even the radio he sang about is a mechanism.

My musical preferences are more eclectic and include classical, pop and contemporary. Yet, I see that however clumsy his efforts, Daddy was transmitting to me his love for music. Often a melody or song floats through my head as easily as my Dad’s music did out our living room window. You might say the sound of music has masked some of my Dad’s missteps as a parent. For that I am thankful.

Statement of Christian Doctrine and Rules and Discipline of the Lancaster Conference of the Mennonite Church, 1968.

What interests or hobbies did a parent or close relative instill in your life? Was your experience a positive or negative one? Tell us about it.

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