Thanksgiving Traditions

Here in Detroit, we are not watching the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade this morning.  No, no.  Currently my television channel is set to the local NBC affiliate that is airing Detroit's own America's Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Yes, as humble and decrepit as our city may seem to the rest of the country... back off!  Today is Thanksgiving and we have our own parade and our very own football game too.

Living in the metropolis surrounding a core city that's experienced such loss (money, leadership, neighborhoods, Boblo Island!) there's alot that economics can't take away from metro-Detroiters; our spirit, hometown loyalty and traditions.

The parade lives on and is my background commotion this morning as it has been every Thanksgiving in the past thirty-eight years.

In our childhood home the parade would be viewed in the living room.  A quartet of kids, cozy in pajamas, crunching on Cocoa Puffs and hearing the clank of preparations in the next room.  Mom would be rifling through pots and pans and going through her methodical preparations:  Crisco-ing the turkey, lining up the boxes and cans of sides, ironing the good tablecloth and waiting on the electric double oven to heat.  Meanwhile, we kids remained nearby but out of the way.  The Detroit parade, its marching bands and mega balloons being the perfect distraction.

One year, I distinctly recall a local reporter dropping an expletive during the live broadcast.  A giant balloon of an adorable puppy was being commandeered down the street by its bundled-up handlers.  The female reporter, who either was imbibing in holiday spirits a little too early in the day or simply didn't realize that her mic was still live, remarked to her co-host, "Could you imagine if that thing took a *bleep* on your carpet?!"  (only without the censoring bleep!) My eyes went large and my stomach went sour.  That was a word I knew we weren't allowed to use and I wasn't sure I was even supposed to know of its existence!  I peripherally checked my siblings and not a flicker, not a comment.  I don't know if the slip had missed them or if they too were sitting wide-eyed in disbelief.  The purity of my holiday was soured for a moment.  This was not a holiday memory I ever wanted to cherish... but, here I sit with that annual remembering creeping up as tradition.

Eventually Santa would end the local parade and we'd take turns cranking through the six local channels to find more Thanksgiving fun.  Usually another of the major networks would be airing a medley of parades from across the country. They would swap coverage from New York to Hawaii to L.A. to even brief footage from our own humble parade.  It was always odd to see sun and palm trees mixed with turkey celebrations.  We locals associate the November holiday with cold, sometimes wet, sometimes crisp and sometimes snow!  Coconut-shelled hula dancers were always an odd mix in the variety of footage seen that day, but it became tradition too.

At some point we'd be urged out of our flannels and into our clothing.  And, about the time the scent of turkey would start to waft it would be time for the kids in the living room to turn the channel to Charlie Brown. 

Now, for some reason in the mid-eighties, they didn't air the Peanuts Thanksgiving special on Thanksgiving Day.  In the era before 24-hour holiday viewing on cable networks, you could only catch these specials once a year.  Charlie's holiday of popcorn, lawn chairs and toast would be aired an evening or two before the holiday itself.  On Thanksgiving Day, for some reason, the chosen mid-afternoon programming became Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown!  Yep, the special where Charlie, Linus, Peppermint Patty and crew somehow got involved in a water rapids race while away at summer camp.  The Peanuts had to battle the typical camp trials including the navigation of confusing military time, missed buses, nature's elements, Charlie Brown's ineptness and a gaggle of bullies which, of course, included an evil brown cat.  It was never my favorite Peanuts special, but with only six channels to contend with and most other p.m. coverage designated to the NFL, Race for Your Life became a part of our tradition as well.

Around the time the scent of turkey was joined by the additional aromas of rolls and pie, was the time we started crayoning out place settings and watching out the family room picture window for the arrival of grandparents and cousins.  Most major holidays were celebrated with my mom's side of the family.  Thanksgiving would include Lion's football on the tube for the men, a (weather-permitting) half-hazard round of touch football in the yard for the kids and who-knows-what for the ladies because we ran off and left them trickling back and forth between the kitchen and dining room.

Dinner always (and pretty much still) consisted of turkey (which my older cousin would always try to convince me was chicken, so I'd stop making gag-faces and try it), gravy, Stove Top stuffing, Hungry Jack's mashed potatoes, corn, canned cranberry sauce ("the red stuff"), some kind of pistachio dish my grandma would always make ("the green stuff"), sweet potatoes ("the stuff with the marshmallows in it") and heaping piles of split-top rolls.  Dessert was always an assortment of pies, pumpkin always present, and us kids trying to swipe mouthfuls of whipped cream, sans pie.  There is also a birthday cake for my grandmother who's birthday falls on the 25th.

After the carb-load someone would always fall asleep (one or two of the men), the women would sit chattering at the table and us kids would run off and play and/or try to spy on what the women were talking about (and maybe still be trying to swipe the whipped cream.)

Thanksgiving now rotates between venues with basically the same crowd; only now with the addition of spouses and new cousins/great-grandchildren/nieces and nephews (titles dependant on which branch of the family tree you reside.)  We thankfully still celebrate Grandma's special day along with the holiday (Her 93rd, this year!)  The company of my last-living grandparent I still cherish along with the fact that the rest of the family still shares love and company with one another after all these years.  God and is as good to us and he was decades ago, despite lifes ups and downs.  And, the comfort of the parade currently broadcasting in the background is one more way that I'm assured that home is home.

Anatomy of a Childhood Home

I had a small shock administered to my system as I took a spontaneous jaunt past my childhood home this afternoon.  You see, this is my childhood home as we left it when my family moved out in 2001:

This is how we found it today:

Bushes obliterated, Christmas lights hanging in June, grass coming up through the driveway, front porch swing replaced with piles of unused furniture...

... backyard toys in the front of the house, moldy siding, Mom's roses hacked out of the trellis, trees that seem to be growing out of the living room walls...

I fainted and swooned and made the appropriate amount of inappropriate Facebook comments about it shortly after.  Then I remembered that the new owners have a growing brood of three or four offspring, much like the four children of our own family who had the time of our lives growing up on that same lot.

I wondered if we had also left the yard in such disarray as we ran amok for the better part of the 70's and 80's.  Did we always have the time and resources to keep up with power-washing the siding and repairing every peel and splinter?  I decided to dig up some pictures and reanalyze the anatomy of my childhood home from the bones up!

This was the family home in its original form:

That's Tammy's hind and tail you see, my older sister screaming (right) and myself acting extra concerned.

A cinder block bungalow, painted yellow and insulated with old newspapers.  We didn't get around to pouring a sidewalk yet, so we walked on a row of press board sheets, laid single file, to get from the porch to the often muddy driveway.  This system proved good enough for a decade or so.  The boards would start to warp throughout the years, which added an extra ounce of fun to our childhood. Often on a dare and always with thrill, we'd take turns lifting up the boards one-by-one to see if anything good had crawled beneath.  It was usually just ants, worms and roly-polys to be found. But, on a special day, we might discover a crayfish hole.  On an even more special day, we might find a crayfish peeking out of its hole and snapping at us with one claw. Extra fun accompanied by extra squeals!

We had an above-the-ground green Kmart pool installed in the side yard (later moved to the back.)  It didn't matter that our house's paint had started to peel or that the phone line hung low.  This is where we all learned to swim!  My older sister, with obvious glee. Me, on the ladder, waiting to "get used to" the water temperature.  We all shared my yellow doggie bathing suit throughout the years as well as my sister's red one, and we all can now stave off drowning for an hour or two if need be.

I can't say much about the interior decor of our home in the 70's, because then I would also be commenting on the interior decor of your home in the 70's.  I'll let this one photo of baby me and older sis riding off into the sunset of our shared bedroom speak volumes.  I can tell you this, however.  It can be a dangerous thing to lazily roll over in bed and accidentally smack a wood-paneled wall in the middle of the night.  I can vividly remember waking up, on several occasions, with wood splinters underneath my fingernails and only having to venture one guess as to how they got there.  Not to mention, how the pattern of the wallpaper and linoleum flooring offered little comfort to any flu-sufferer stuck in bed. Already dizzy with fever from the virus, the dots and checkers would just spin and twirl until one was sure they'd somehow entered Lewis Carroll's wormhole.

As the 70's neared its close, this kid entered the house---apparently making it much too crowded.  Thus entering the family home into Phase II of its incarnation. That's my younger sister rolling around in her lead-based walker in the middle of an active construction zone. 

My dad designed an addition to be slapped onto the left side of the house.  It included a downstairs family room and dining room, and a new master bed/bath/closet upstairs.  The neighbors all pitched in with the build and, as far as I could tell, they were paid in McDonald's.  I remember climbing the staircase with my mom one evening to check on their progress only to find my dad and all the neighborhood teens sitting atop piles of two-by-fours and munching on as many quarter-pounders as they could stomach. I was incredulous!  We were only allowed McDonald's on Fridays!  Maybe if I could learn to build a house one day I too would be rewarded with fast food in the middle of the week.

Months of blood, sweat, toil and burger grease eventually gave way to this:

Black and white and red on the chimney.  The kids occupied the original right side of the house, still bungalow in style with the interior unchanged. And, the grown-ups took over the left side, where they could actually stand fully erect while digging through their closet.  Yes, as cute of an idea as a bungalow seems, let me present this warning: As I touch the top of my skull with the palms of my hands, I can still feel the lumps left behind from years of knocking my head into the sloping ceiling of my childhood room.  Permanent damage from the innocent notion that I could safely retrieve a clean pair of socks from the dresser drawer and emerge unharmed.  Consider yourself warned!

Well the house looked this way for the rest of my childhood.  The wood paneling doubled in quantity thanks to the doubling in square footage of the house itself.  Years of backyard fun was had as recorded for prosperity in an earlier post.  But, what about the issue of curb appeal that inspired this post to begin with?

With the arrival of my little bro in 1980, came the quadrupling of toys and noise spilling out of our yards, front and back.  I found evidence in this:

And this:

And this:

And this:

God bless the neighbors for still answering their doors when we rang!

We may have always had a project going on...

Maybe the dad who lived there then was a bit handier than the one who lives there now.  Maybe people didn't like our taste in style.  Maybe our dog yapped out back all night and the drivers passing by in the 80's were as appalled by the big wheels and bicycles strewn in the driveway as I was today.

Whether the bones of a house are strengthened throughout the years or left to rot, it will always be the structure the child remembers as "home".  I guess Christmas lights in summertime, furniture on the porch or mold on the siding has no effect on this.  Be it ever so humble... this is where every child's memories will be made, pages added to their story and fodder found for their future blogs.

Bird Watching

Our backyard was such a flutter this afternoon with all of our favorite colored Michigan birds.  Bright red cardinals, blue jays of all sizes, woodpeckers, robins, chickadees.

They inspired me to go outside while the laundry was running and try my hand at bird photography.  By the way, my little point and shoot camera only zooms to 8X, so I didn't have the highest of expectations when trudging outdoors.

My first shot: I can't tell if it's a quickly moving bird or a leftover dead leaf that couldn't bring itself to take its plunge to the ground yet.  Sigh...

Matters weren't helped by the fact that a noisy blue jay alerted the avian world of my presence with his rude warning cackle.  I quickly learned the bigger the bird, the bigger the brain.  All deliciously chubby birds of color quickly fled, never to return, leaving me with nothing but a tree full of dull, tiny, chattering sparrows.

One brave cardinal decided to dare the berry-lined fence that divides our backyard from our neighbor's.  But, he was stubborn enough to stay twigs-in-face, apparently fully aware of my mission.  It's a camera, not a gun, Mint!  (Oh yeah, "Mint" was my childhood nickname for every cardinal that lived in the woods behind my family home growing up.  I would pretend there was only one and his name was Mint.  I'm guessing "Mint" came about when I was at a loss of words when searching for "Cinnamon".  I'd beg my mom to let me adopt Mint and keep him in a parakeet cage, but she never gave in.  To this day every cardinal is still Mint.  And, today, Mint was gorgeous, although a slight pain in the arse.)

There was also a chickadee who braved a safe distance, staying high enough out of reach and far enough to not quite capture by lens.  This led me on a goofy game of "What Part of  Being Human Makes the Birds Stay Away?"

Since I had been using my soft-footed "Indian Walk", I knew is wasn't my noisiness.  So, I then decided that the problem had to be: 1.) Me being an obvious large blob moving around a large open space and 2.) My eyes. 

To resolve issue #1, I moved my search up against the storage shed.  I leaned against its yellow wall and tried ferociously to blend.  #2's conclusion was drawn because I was bored enough to allow my brain to wander to the remembrance of that butterfly we once learned about in long-past science class, who has the natural defense mechanism of bearing spots on its wings that resemble an owl's eyes.  This makes birds think twice before diving in to eat it.  Since my own eyes are especially googly, I decided that birds must be equally intimidated by mine.

As a solution, I created this method of preventing my eyes from seeming like a threat: Don't look up for too long.  Looking up makes you eyes too big.  Hood your eyes between glances.  You might look half-sedated, but only the birds are watching and they don't know of these things.  Then cautiously glance again in the other direction.  Eyelids up.  Eyelids down.  Eyelids up.  All around.  (There was a little photo journalism initiated here to document the theory, but I decided it best not to share...)

Did I think this strategy would really work?  Eh, I was willing to pretend.  The day you give up playing make-believe is the day your eternal state of boredom begins.  Boredom, I resist.  So, I will play the eye game. 

And, soon came closer another chickadee.  Not afraid because of my eyelid shields.  Right?  Well, he soon flew away too and I felt defeated.  There was this baby blue jay with a tiny little tuft that I was really  hoping to get a shot of but, like I was still coming to terms with, the smart birds kept away.

I tried the front yard.  Eye game in play, trying my best to look bored and nonthreatening... No dice.

Changing subjects, I briefly tried to lure a frisky black squirrel from the neighbor's yard.  If you just asked, "Black Squirrel???", you must not be from these parts.  Whenever someone visits from out of state or even from outside our ten-mile radius, they're always taken aback by our squirrels.  Yes, we have your everyday grey squirrels too.  But, the sight of one painted black causes some to ask, "What is that?  A skunk?"  Yes, around here we're into removing skunks' white stripes, giving them lipo, and teaching them to climb trees.  And, with that I hand them their free pass to the 21st century.  Metro-Detroit: Our wildlife as diverse as our schools.

Well, my squirrel buddy seemed to continue to favor the neighbors yard, so I decided my best bet was the whistling tree of sparrows.  It was becoming pretty populated by now.

I then decided I wanted to catch a bird in flight, so more games of attraction ensued. 

A round of "Eye Game" followed by a round of "See the grass. Be the grass." All the while whistling a melody that may have sounded more like the theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind than any known bird call, but lo and behold...

There it is.  Right of center.  "Bird in Flight".

Shortly after, a round of fireworks/semi-automatic bullet-shooting went off in one of the neighbors yards, causing even the dumb sparrows (and me) to flee in every direction!

On my way to take cover, I found one last non-moving target of proof of active bird life.

Call me weird, call me Crazy Bird Lady (even though I've been openly campaigning for the "Crazy Cat Lady" title for the past several years...) but one thing you'll never be able to call me is bored.

P.S.  And, I guess it's safe to say that I'm a terrible bird photographer.

Things I Remember, But Don't Need to Know

Have you ever wondered how big of a percentage of your memory contains completely useless information?  I know so much stuff that's a complete waste of brain matter that I thought maybe if I purged some of it here, I could free up some prime real estate.

Things I remember for no good reason:

• Kim Kardashian was married for 72 days before filing for divorce.  Whoopity-doo!  All forms of media are pushing this fact on me and now it's stuck in the place where all the other celebrities short-lived unions are stored.  J-Lo and Cris Judd.  Kid Rock and Pam Anderson.  Lisa Marie Presley and Nic Cage.  Renee Zelleweger and Kenny Chesney (still trying to wrap my head around that one!)  Britney Spears and that guy from her high school.  Drew Barrymore and that bar owner.  Drew Barrymore and Tom Green.  Julia Roberts and Lyle Lovett.  Actually, I'd like to keep the Roberts-Lovett marriage in there if I can.  It was one of the most unexpected, quirkiest, barefooted (and soon forgotten) short-lived unions between two celebrities that I actually like.  But, the rest of you all, be gone!
• All of the words to Jabberwocky.  I memorized this with great fervor in the seventh grade and have never forgotten it.
• All the words to "Pink Elephants On Parade" from Disney's Dumbo.  You know, the song the hallucinated elephants sang to Dumbo right before he woke up, hung over, in a tree full of jive-talking crows?
• My high school gym locker combination.  Don't believe me?  4-24-2.  Right, left twice and right again.
• The fact that all of my elementary school teachers wore polyester elastic-wasted pants (that made their butts look big) and shoes with wooden soles that clip-clopped down the halls, so you could hear them coming from a mile away.
• That my childhood neighbor from across the street once had a dead squirrel stuck in his tree.  Its head was inside a hollow about 15 feet up and it died somehow with its butt and tail hanging out.  We couldn't look away and peeked in on it for several days in a row.  One afternoon we were surprised to find it suddenly tailless!  The mystery still remains unsolved.
• That same neighbor's daughter was showing me a family photo album in which her dad had cut their dog's head out of the picture frame when taking it.  She chuckled and said, "Oh, Dad cut off the dog's head."  And, for the longest time I thought that her dad had cut off their dog's head!
• Every Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, David Spade, Mike Meyers, Phil Hartman, Julia Sweeney, Melanie Hutsell and Jay Mohr SNL sketch ever made.  Most of them, verbatim.  This goes for all the corny Sandler song lyrics and the farewell they all sang, in character, to Phil Hartman on his last night on the show.  (Favorite line: Michael McKean, "I don't have a character yet, but I was on Laverne and Shirley... ♫")
• My class room number for my first day of fourth grade.  The elementary school I'd attended grades K-3 had closed down and I was very nervous to be starting at a new school.  Class room 6 is burned in my memory because I did not want to get lost that first day.
• That my gym teacher was missing half a finger.
• E=MC squared.  Don't know what to do with this information, but I remember it!
• HONIFClBr.  My tenth grade chemistry teacher promised us we'd always remember the diatomic elements if we turned them into a nonsense word that was pronounced "Honey-Feklurbur".  Did it work?  Seeing that it's twenty-two years after the fact, I guess so!  What is a diatomic element?  Ummm...  It looks like your work here is only half done, Mr. Shalla.
• Janet Jackson has her cha-cha pierced.  I didn't want to know that either, but she had to go and mention it in an article I read in the 90's.  After her Super Bowl appearance, I guess we all know she's pierced elsewhere as well.
• Lots of mean things that were once said to me, but don't bear repeating.
• That the corners of the hallways that were painted orangey-red in high school had the girls' bathrooms.  If you headed to the wrong corners of the school, you would find a boys' bathrooms instead and you would be late for class.
• Daniel Day-Lewis won an Oscar for a movie called My Left Foot.  I had heard of the movie about a man with cerebral palsy that learned to paint with his left foot.  But, every time a presenter that night would name the movie title, I still thought it sounded like a phrase you use when you're trying not to swear.
• A friend in second grade made me sing her phone number over and over again, so I wouldn't forget it.  I still remember it along with the melody that she created for it.  I have no use for this information anymore seeing that I have no idea who would pick up if I dialed the number thirty years after the fact.
• The chorus to the first song I ever wrote, when I was about 8 or 9ish.  "Jack and Jill went up the hill, Humpty Dumpty fell off of the wall, Old King Cole was a merry old soul, but my love ain't no fairy tale at all."  I didn't know much about love at the time.  Just that singing about it could land you on the radio.

Well, I don't know if I've manage to purge anything tonight, but I've certainly made myself good and tired.  Now, my main concern in going to bed and dreaming about headless dogs and tailless squirrels.  Night all!

Trick or Treat!

Picking out a Halloween costume was so important back in the day.  Now and then, I'll still dress up for Halloween, but I certainly don't buy my costumes anymore.  I didn't even venture down that aisle at Target this year, because I know that full-sized costumes' prices start at a whopping twenty bones.  And, that's for some flimsy trampy French Maid getup which is neither work-appropriate nor will it completely cover my hide.  If you're looking to have your rump covered, we're talking an investment of thirty bucks and up.

Halloween has become so expensive.  Trick-or-treating in the 70's and 80's only cost us $5.00 or less.  And, that was for costuming all four kids total!  We'd either make our own outfits or get those boxed ones that were purchased from the grocery store.  A boxed costume would consist of a plastic character mask that kind of itched your face while simultaneously smelling strange, and a plastic smock-like "shirt" and "pants" that tied in the back like your art apron from kindergarten.  The genius of these boxed costumed is that they could be layered over even the thickest down Michigan jacket.  (See me, above, as the Road Runner.)

If they made a Road Runner costume these days, the designer would try to physically turn you into a bird.  Today's costume would have a long feathery tail, skin-tight yellow legs and a big purply-blue plume on top of the head (and absolutely no allowance for a winter coat.)  We didn't need all that realistic-ness back then.  If someone was confused by my mask and thought it may be Woody Woodpecker I was depicting, they could simply look down at my smock and see a cartoon image of the Road Runner right there on my chest.  I also "Meep-Meep!"ed alot from behind my mask so, if there was still any confusion, that would surely clear things up!

The years we didn't use a boxed costume, we'd raid our toy chests or parents' closet.  On any given year, there would be at least one in our clan dressed as a hobo.  A hobo costume usually consisted of a parent's flannel shirt, my mom's floppy green and yellow gardening hat (which I'm still unsure of how she obtained it. I certainly remember her gardening, but never while in a floppy hat) and Mom's eyebrow pencil smudged across our cheeks and noses.  My sister won the jackpot one year by talking my mom into purchasing a plastic cigar to compliment her hobo garb.  I was so jealous of that thing!  She'd chomp on it around the house talking in a Grouch Marx-ish voice all the while having no idea who Groucho Marx was.  She was the hit of the church costume party with her cigar chomping bit, making middle-aged women giggle by saying cigar-ish lines. (Which, now that I think about it, may have just been, "I have a cigar!  Like my cigar?"  Still using Groucho's voice though.)  I wanted that thing still, even though it was most likely covered with saliva by now.  My hobos never had shtick.

You can see the white tip of the plastic cigar peeking out of my sister's pocket.

Each year we had a trick-or-treating tradition.  We'd horse down dinner, in anticipation, while wondering if our cousin had horsed down his dinner yet.  (My cousin, who was really like a bonus sibling, came along with us every year.)  The neighbor kids from across the street, who either ate dinner super early or all together weren't fed on Halloween, would always be the first at our door, "Trick or Treat!!!"  And, always while we were still eating.  This would cause my father to grumble in same way that telephone calls at this hour would merit.  Which cued us to grumble along, "Don't they feed those kids?", "Who trick-or-treats while it's still light out?"  It was always a smart thing to agree with Dad. 

Once my cousin would arrive, we'd hit our neighborhood's streets first.  We lived on an old dirt country road that was hidden smack dab between the suburbs and the city.  Not many kids lived on our street, which meant one glorious thing every October 31st: Full-sized candy bars!  Never having more than 5-10 treaters coming to your door, meant the neighbors would splurge on--not only full-sized candy bars--but cans of pop, bowls of coins you could grab by the handful, you name it! 

Then there was the house on the corner with the chickens.  I don't remember for the life of me what kind of goods they passed out.  I just remember we always stopped there out of some sort of family obligation.  We'd hold our sacks above our heads as the chickens would swarm us and cluck around our feet.  We'd let the family friend toss whatever it was into our bags while we'd silently wish my mom and aunt would wrap up the small talk.  The longer we stood there, the greater our chances of being pecked, bitten or pooped on!  One year as we made our speedy getaway from the chicken house, my cousin slammed his finger in our sliding van door.  I'd never seen a blood blister form so quickly and become so large!  It was a winner for sure.  Just looking at it made your eyes ache!  It was the saddest moment of my young life thus far, but I also certainly wished I could be there when that sucker got popped!

From our neighborhood we'd move on to my cousin's (which is also the neighborhood where I currently reside.)  His street was connected to an actual subdivision!  What my hood had in quality goods, his made up for in quantity.  Houses just steps from one another!  Crappier candy, but in mass quantities!  (Although, some of them turned their homes into haunted houses for the night, which I thought was rude.  We skipped those ones.)  Once our legs got tired, we'd go pick up our grandma and she'd tag along as we'd visit one of her friends who lived midway between our house and hers. (We all lived within a half-mile of each other.)  There, we'd collect our homemade popcorn balls that I would never eat.  As my grandma chatted, for what seemed like days, we'd stand by the wall staring at the bearskin rug that hung there, daring each other to touch it. 

Eventually Grandma would run out of things to say and we'd finally return to their house, dump all our goods on the floor and let the swapping begin!  Bubblegum of any sort was the highest in value.  Even if it was just Double Bubble that would lose its flavor in ten seconds flat.  The unwanted candy (those round things wrapped in black and orange wrappers that we never did open to find out what they were, anything with nuts, my popcorn ball...) would be dumped into a large bowl for the grown-ups to pick through.  In my teens I'd start trick-or-treating with friends.  But, one year after high school, I escorted my younger siblings as they were still keeping the family tradition alive.  It was during one of these candy-swapping events on my grandma's living floor that the television announced that River Phoenix had died on the sidewalk in front of the Viper Room.  Totally ruining my Halloween!

We still keep the tradition alive.  Since my parents and I now live next door my grandma's house, my siblings and the cousins still like to gather here on Halloween.  We take the new little ones to all the houses we visited when we were their age.  The neighbors are mostly all different now, but there's always those few scary houses that the kids might ask us if we can skip. 

The costumes may cost more for this new generation, but hopefully the memories are still equal in value.

The Back Yard

I'm entertained for hours just by sitting in the back yard.  I spent much of last night watching a young rabbit trying in vain to play with a yard full of robins.  Each time he'd hop closer to one, it would fly away in confusion. "I was just lookin' for worms here, Fuzzy. Buzz off!"  Popcorn-worthy.  And, I spent much of this afternoon stalking a praying mantis I found that was as big as my hand.  It found me much less amusing than I it.

I don't think I couldn't ever reside somewhere that didn't have a backyard.  It was the backdrop to practically all of our childhood adventures.  Living on a couple acre spread growing up, we had plenty of room for badminton, Marco Polo, tether ball, tree house and a make-shift bowling alley in the woods that us kids created with debris and whatever random relics we found there.  Now living on land 1/4 that size, there's still plenty of room for the local bunnies, squirrels, birds, groundhogs, bugs and deer to visit.

Corral and woods behind me & Tammy

The wooded portion of our childhood backyard was probably where we had the most fun.  There was an old pony corral left over from the days when my parents attempted pony ownership before we were conceived.  The yellow paint on the wooded fencing was mostly chipped off by the time we came around, but it was still good for countless hours of climbing. 

There was the section of the woods that my mother threatened us to keep clear off because it was where an old outhouse once stood.  I don't know how deep the hole that was dug for the latrine, but my mother had us convinced that we'd fall in it to our doom if we came too close.  We would circle the area with a 20 foot circumference of caution.  In our imaginations the outhouse hole was pit-worthy in size and, if we were to fall into it, we were sure never to be able to climb out.  We would most likely be stranded in there until some wealthy Egyptians would pass by and kindly offer to buy us into slavery.

In the winter time the ground in the woods would completely freeze over, which was perfect for boot-skating.  We would slide on the ice in our snow boots with such perfect force that when we'd grab any random tree we would spin around it several times before falling down and/or splitting a lip.

There were always mysterious artifacts to be found. Tin cans, broken old dishes, rocks, shells.  Anything appearing more than thirty years in age we'd wonder if it could possibly be something the Native Americans once used on our land. 

We once thought my dog had found an alien in the woods (even though we never really believed in aliens.) I was babysitting the younger two on a very hot summer day and as we were getting out of the pool our dog, Buddy, came running out of the woods with something pink and fleshy-looking in his mouth.  He brought it to us with such pride we were sure, "Oh no. He's killed something for us!"  He suddenly let out a yelp, dropped the creature on the ground and jumped backward.  He tried to pick it up once more, but yelped again as if the thing was stinging him!  I got brave and tried to get a closer look.  It looked pink and slimy and had some sort of tentacles snapping out in a threatening manner.  It made a strange, squealing, unearthly noise.  We screamed and ran for the telephone!  I remember placing the call to my aunt, but can't remember for the life of me what on earth I told her.  We comforted Buddy and checked his mouth for lacerations saying quick prayers that he wouldn't die from whatever kind of sting he just received while we waited for her.  She got to our house quickly, considering she only lived minutes away, and heroically went to inspect the "alien".  I'm sure the fear in our eyes as we waited starkly contrasted the amusement in her's when she made her quick analysis.  "Do you know what this is?" she asked us.  Obviously we didn't.  Well, it was a dried-out rubber band ball our dog had found in the woods.  It was snapping apart in the extreme heat.  He hadn't been gravely injured trying to kill something.  He had found a ball and wanted us to play with him!  The "tentacles" were broken bands and the slime consisted strictly of dog saliva.  I'd never been more relieved or humbled.

 

We had the usual toys as well.  Sandbox, swing set, slide, jungle gym.  I didn't realize what great shape these backyard toys kept us in until middle-age when I tried to climb a monkey bar with my niece and instantly seemed to have torn an armpit muscle or two.  You don't realize how many muscles exist in your body back in the days when you're using them all without any knowledge of it. 

"Kind Sir"

We had a game we'd play in the back yard called "Kind Sir".  The rules were simple.  The three of us sisters would climb onto any play structure of our choosing.  Once you chose your spot, you were stranded there.  The game would begin when the youngest sibling, our little brother, would ride into the yard on his Dukes of Hazzard Big Wheel.  We'd wave hankies and plea "Kind sir! Kind sir! Come save me! Over here!" and one by one he'd come and rescue us all with a kiss on the hand.  You couldn't move from your spot until your hand was kissed by the boy with the blonde bowl haircut.  I have no idea how or why we created this game.  Were we playing out "damsel in distress" fantasies or trying to teach the little one how to be a gentleman?  Whatever our intention, I believe the game only resulted in my brother thinking he needs to be lavished with female affection for every waking minute of the remainder of his life. (Just kidding, T. *wink*)

The family that lives in our old house now also has four children.  I often wonder if their kids use the back yard as much as us.  Do they wonder, like we did, why there's a big metal reflector fastened to the big oak tree in the back yard?  Do they wonder why every so often they'll find a rusty old chain wrapped around a tree trunk and make up stories to how they got there. (I know the answer to that one! They're from when Buddy would escape his dog chain and try to hide out in the woods.  He'd inevitably get himself wrapped around a tree every time!)  Is the tree house that my brother and I built in our teens still standing in the woods?  Do they recognize the rap lyrics we graffitied its walls with?  Are their kids even allowed in the woods? 

I don't care if you live in the city, the country-side or some fancy schmancy subdivision.  The backyard.  It's the most valuable piece of land in worth of childhood memories.


(Below: Pages from a Memory Book I had drawn in my twenties.  Half of the book consisted of our back yard shenanigans.)

The chopped off caption read: "Climbing trees was always fun... except once!" True story.  My sister and I had decided to have our snacks up in the climbing tree one afternoon.  Her snack (a one-handed treat) was a wisely chosen Popsicle.  I, notoriously, opted for the two-handed bowl of Cocoa Puffs. 

I Feel Bad About My Cat

Anyone who knows me, knows I lost my cat last year. She's not lost lost. There's no "missing" posters tacked up around town or children on bicycles calling out, "Casey! CASEY!!!" She, after living a long and full life, died just like she was supposed to do.

The reason I prefaced this fact with the "anyone who knows me..." line is because throughout her long, drawn-out tumor-filled death everyone who knows me heard about it. Facebook posts documented her her every ailment (accompanied by sad pictures of her wrapped in blankies, whiskers frowning), sob stories in work-place break room, prayer sessions with children who didn't understand death yet asking for that peace that passes all understanding.

While I was sitting out back this evening, pondering my next blog idea, my super keen allergy-detecting sinuses swore they picked up the scent of odeur de canine. That simple aroma wafting from who knows where bore a tunnel right through my skull and sat to marinate in my gray matter for awhile. Hours later ejected today's blog idea.

Casey was a star, is a star. Everyone who wants to know and doesn't want to know her story, knows her story. I began thinking of my poor neglected pets that came and went before the era of the internet. Who's left to tell their story? I guess, me.

And, so, in loving tribute to:

TAMMY: Tammy was our first family pet. Dog of unknown mutt heritage, brought home at the age before my memories began. Brown fur, black nose with white on the bridge.

Tammy and I in the backyard.

The thing I remember most about Tammy was that my mom kept a newspaper article about her in a keepsake drawer. A black-and-white photograph including some caption about being a star of the week. I, for years, I thought Tammy was some kind of canine celebrity. Later in life my mother clarified for me that the newspaper article was animal shelter ad. No Taco Bell chiuaua was she.

But, the fact that we rescued her from the gas chamber gave my family some sort of hero status in my mind. I don't remember much else about sweet Tammy girl. Running and playing in the yard together are my main recollections. Her laying in the sandbox while we played with our Tonka trucks. And, for some reason my mind held the analogy that she always looked as if she had been freshly sprayed in the eyes by a skunk. Maybe that's what shelter life causes one's eyes to resemble. But, maybe it's also because I vaguely recall one of our dogs getting squirted and my dad having to bathe it in tomato juice. Might have been Tammy, may have been Muffin.

Snoopy and I as kids

SNOOPY: Our Snoopy was not a beagle. Our Snoopy was a beautiful black and white cat.

Snoopy's brother George (similarly colored, but with slightly longer fur) went home with my cousin. It was a novelty that we purposely had pets that were brothers. Adopted, I'm sure, with the intention that they would miss each other and could be brought back and forth for play dates. I only remember one play date actually coming to fruition. It ended with one chasing the other around my grandma's tension lamp much too recklessly. Cats don't seem to miss their siblings once they've parted so, as far as I remember, Snoopy was excluded from family visits from that day on.

Snoopy was an outdoor cat who, from time to time, would let us believe that we owned him. He seemed most interested in us during supper time when he'd drag gifts of dead mice, birds, and chipmunks home to us and present them at the glass doorwall that adjoined the dining room to the back deck. My parents would get disgusted and pull the curtains shut until we were done eating. I thought it was gross, but kind of sweet.

He would disappear every summer for about a week at a time. I'm not sure if he ventured much further than our backwoods during those excursions, but I'm sure if he could talk he'd have stories to tell about it. We used to call them his "hunting trips". He'd always reappear as if, "Okay, I just needed a break from you guys. But, now I'd appreciate some kibble and warm milk please."

Snoopy and I as teenagers

When he'd snuggle, he'd snuggle. Motor at full rev. When he was done, he would dismount, digging his claws into you without an ounce of grace. (I still have the scars on my stomach to prove it!) When he would venture indoors he would disappear into closets, crawlspaces and attics. My mom would always tell us that animals do this sometimes when they're about to die. By this calculation, he was dying half of his life. He was always hiding, but I'm sure more out of annoyance than hospice.

When Snoopy's time finally did arrive, he was a ripe teenager (as was I.) Having lived an adventurous and satisfying life, he chose to make his final resting place underneath our house.

My childhood home didn't have a basement, just a crawl space large enough for one human in coveralls to shimmy underneath and thaw the pipes out each Michigan winter. Snoopy, adventurous even in death, decided to crawl past the allowance of human reach and moan underneath our feet in the dining room for hours (utter torture to us!) as he crawled toward the light. My dad had to pull up the floorboards next to the furnace in order to retrieve his body and give him a more appropriate burial site.

MUFFIN: Our little tramp. I believe we found Muffin at a home that was giving away free puppies that their little tramp had bore. Muffin was brown with black speckles, medium in size and mixed in breed. She also had the puppy-dog-eye look perfected. We used to call it her guilty face.


Muffin

Two of Muffin's pups

Well, at the ripe age of two and some months, her guilty face was for good reason. Muffin was preggo, which in dog years made her a real bonafied teen mom.

I would overhear my own mother exasperatedly say, "She's too young. She's just too young for this!" Either Muffin had never yet sat through the birds-and-bees conversation or my parents had regretted not getting her spade sooner. But, it was what it was and in the grand tradition of teen motherhood, the grandparents ended up caring for the six babies she decided to deliver deep underneath the back deck. My dad having to crawl under and retrieve them all.

My siblings and I fell in love with the puppies and let ourselves hold on to the hope that we'd get to keep them all for ourselves. But, one by one they were given away courtesy of the "Free Puppies" sign my dad had constructed.

Muffin lived a very short life, dying of heartworms at a pretty young age. But, through Muffin and her puppy experience our lives crossed paths with the greatest dog who ever lived, Buddy.

BUDDY: If Muffin was a tramp, Buddy was the Tramp. You know, from the Disney movie? He was a stray who seemed to have been abused in the past. He had either run away or been abandoned and started hanging around our neighborhood. He would sleep underneath our deck and sweetly, with starvation in his eyes, try to befriend us. We were not supposed to pet him, feed him or give him any affection so he would carry on his way.  But, Buddy adopted us before we could adopt him, thus earning him his name.

Buddy was a friendly mutt. Black and white, possibly part Spaniel. And, he didn't just move in without earning his keep either. Buddy arrived shortly after Muffin's puppies did. (No, he was not the father. We consulted Maury Povich, so we're pretty sure about this.) Muffin, not being into motherhood, was definitely lacking in the parental skills department. When she would tire of nursing, she would simply get up a try to walk away with six whiskered little mouths still attached to teet. Buddy would frustratedly pace around her outside cage, speaking in some kind of dog language to the babies, he would fix whatever was wrong and they loved him like a father.

That summer when we were returning from a week-long vacation, we came home to six little puppies running around the backyard. Us kids had run to the backyard cage (that they should have been locked in) to greet them and they had already run half the distance to meet us. Muffin must have been neglecting them again (and the human dogsitter was between visits) so Buddy had dug an escape tunnel for them and was playing when them in the yard until we showed up. Oh, the joy that seven wagging doggie tails running to greet you can do for a kid!

Buddy was my compadre for the rest of his life. I would nap with him behind the couch. He would sleep with me in my bed at night. Buddy's street senses never did leave him though.

He started out on a chain in the backyard, which he repeatedly pulled loose, escaping and usually wrapping himself around a tree with. Moving on to the dog house in the large dog cage that Muffin and the pups once occupied. He dug himself out on a daily basis. Moving on then to a modified version of the cage in which my dad had cemented the floor. He would chew his way through the metal fencing! Once the metal fencing was boarded up in the mangled spots, he tried jumping over the top of the fencing and that's when Buddy got a roof. Around his dog house was essentially built a larger doghouse. He never lasted many nights outside in his luxury accommodations anyhow. He was the neighborhood yapper and usually would end up coming inside to sleep with me.

Mr. Cool, even in his old age.

He was also the neighborhood ringleader amongst all the pets. His best friend BoJangles (just Bo, for short) lived at the corner. They were quite a pair. Back in these days the dogs ran loose in our neighborhood. We lived on a quiet country road that no one knew existed. Suburbs on one side of us, city on the other. But, our little dirtroad was a childhood (and pet) paradise. The kids were free and safe to run up and down the streets playing until dinnertime and so were the animals. It wasn't unusual to see a posse of dogs (led by Buddy and Bo, of course) forming a parade down the bend in the road at just about the time leftovers were being gathered at each pets home. The posse would usually consist of about six dogs and one cat.

Whatever horrors in Buddy's past, I'm so happy he got the chance to live this life. And, Buddy lived a very long life. He even battled heartworms, won and lived for several more years after.

My dog allergies worsened as Buddy aged, but he remained my Buddy forever. On bad nights when I thought the watery eyes, sinus pressure and constant congestion were too much to bear, I'd try closing him outside my bedroom door. It wouldn't be long before I'd hear his head knocking against the door over and over and over again. My love for him would soon best my physical discomfort and he's be welcomed back in, "Just try to stay on the floor," I'd plea. With compassion in his eyes, he would comply. How I loved my Buddy.

Well, I realize today's entry was rather self-indulgent. Probably, best enjoyed by myself and other family members who also miss the same furry friends. I left out a couple hamsters, a few stray cats that came and went, one rabbit and countless goldfish (and Casey, of course! But, you know enough about Casey for now. She could have her own book at this rate! Buddy too for that matter!) But, the pets mentioned above were the ones who left special pawprints on our hearts.

Unconditional love is hard to find in the human world. I'm convinced that's one of the reason God gave us pets. Whether they're a star on my Facebook page or an afterthought on my blog decades after their passing... every pet deserves its day in lights. No matter if they're the rescue, the runaway, the ringleader or the teen mom who had to grow up too soon. Their stories should live on whether it bores my readers to tears or not.

As kids, we all heard about doggy heaven. That big farm in the sky that all dogs go to when they leave this earth. Well, I hope it's right next door to the human version, because I can't imagine Heaven being Heaven without getting to see these guys again one day, allergy-free!