December 1, 2015

Clotheslines, poetry in motion.

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in Nostalgia ¶ Tagged clothes dryer, Colors ¶ 4 Comments

Location! Location! Location! That’s the house-hunting mantra. Most people’s wish lists include number of bedrooms and bathrooms, updated kitchen, garage, nice yard.

Location is important, yes, but if clotheslines weren’t allowed in an area where there was a likely house, I wouldn’t even go inside…if I were house-hunting…which I’m not. I’ve never lived where I couldn’t hang clothes out to dry. Not for me are the newer homes that feature a laundry room “conveniently” near the bedrooms. Nunh uh. I want my laundry room near the back door. And it is.

Underwear excepted from clothesline display,
Sheets scented by the sun’s rays,
bottled.
Warm sunshine dreams on cold winter nights,
breezes freeze.

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The nature of laundry
Frances Reinus, 2008
I have never used a clothesline.
I am too young to know the nostalgia they induce.
I do not know the way a fresh-air-hung-dry
Article of clothing smells
Or feels.
I do know that the automatic dryer in my laundry room
Is faster
And easier
And you are guaranteed warmth upon donning a freshly dried article.
And you don’t need pins.
And you don’t need to fight your clothes
And tell them, “Stay, don’t wander in the wind!”
And that a dryer may be hidden in a closet
And not unsightly like those lines of clothes I have seen
Strung between city apartments
And in the back yards of the old-school.
And while they may be cheaper
They seem like too much work.
And I would rather look at the trees, the flowers, and the grass.

But I can look at trees, flowers and grass while I hang my laundry, cheaply. “Unsightly?” I think not! I envy this poet for her youth, but I’m sorry she has never experienced “fresh-air-hung-dry.” “Old-school,” that’s me.

“The nature of laundry” ©Frances Reinus, 2008

November 9, 2015

Please, ease into Christmas.

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in Natural beauty, Nostalgia, Seasons ¶ Tagged Colors, Holidays ¶ 7 Comments

A week into November already — GAK! Don’t misunderstand, I love the gray lady month wrapped in fog and wind. Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday, is just around the corner. Brilliant orange bittersweet drapes branches and fenceposts. Pumpkins’ smiles have drooped a bit, but they still brighten rainy days.

Sweet, the bittersweet.

But, wait, where are all the golds, oranges, rusts, and browns of autumn in the stores? Chocolate kisses, snugged in red, green and silver foil fill, shelves where just last week, Halloween colors reigned. Sparkly Christmas garlands drape the aisles and already carols pierce the airwaves. Humbug.

Too soon, too soon.

Come September’s end, I sidle into fall. I get out my earth-toned napkins, find my fabric pumpkins, lay in a supply of Reese’s cups for Halloween, and collect pretty leaves to iron between wax paper. I display my special Halloween books too — A Small Book of Grave Humour, Fritz Spiegl, Haunted England, Terrence Whitaker, and Ghosts in Residence, H.A. von Behr.

Then, BOO, gone. September. October. POOF, as if a ghostly hand ripped November out of the year. Our unique American holiday becomes a footnote, passed over like cold mashed potatoes and congealed gravy. Retailers gear up for Christmas weeks before turkey and cranberries are on the shopping list.

Bittersweet is lush this season

Pumpkin kisses

Burning bush (winged alatus)

Spice is nice.

Bittersweet festoons…

drapes…

decorates.

Screen Shot 2015-11-09 at 9.38.17 AM

Centerpiece waits for Christmas.

Last year I prolonged my favorite holiday by updating my autumn centerpiece with little silver balls and fluttering icicles to meld November into December gently. I’ll do it again this year…after Thanksgiving.

©Ryan Owen’s Autumn & Hershey Kisses

November 3, 2015

Go one way at a time.

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in Travels, Where to go ¶ Tagged Panic, Where to go ¶ Leave a comment

One of my regular morning walks takes me along a street with a boggling array of signs. It has been a one-way street as long as we’ve lived here. There have been many attempts to mark it so that drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians know which way is the ~~right~~ ~~way~~ correct way to travel.

It runs north-ish to south-ish. Walkers and cyclists can travel both ways, cars, one way. In the winter months I can see the street from the window next to my computer. Cars drive the wrong way several times a day.

Not too long ago, someone in the town’s signage department decided to clarify. First, a crew painted a double yellow line, way off-center, along the southbound side of the street. Giant “iron-on” decals show stick people walking and bikes with no riders cycling. On the other side, the wider side, stick-figure cyclists and big arrows are headed in the northerly direction too. There are no clever symbols to direct cars one way, north to south. Maybe that’s why so many cars go both the correct way and the wrong way.

Then, too, there are multiple signs on posts on both ends of the street that contradict each other.

Really, only garbage truck drivers seem to understand. They go the one direction that is allowed for motor vehicles, and if homeowners haven’t placed their garbage cans on the right side of the street, the drivers roll right on by, leaving the garbage to “mellow” for another week.

Perhaps another sign? “Garbage cans go here.”

Southbound.

Pedestrians apparently walk across the street.

Bike in the big half of the road

Either way is OK.

One way or both ways?

Who can walk 20 mph?

No passing?

Just go around the block.

October 26, 2015

Easy writer.

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in Fun, Hilarity ¶ Tagged How to, Tall tales ¶ 4 Comments

He’s a handyman, a carpenter, a Jack-of-all-trades. I’ll call him John. He is also a writer and a motorcycle-riding trout fisherman. He drives an aging little red truck to his jobs.

John has a never-ending supply of tales. One is about some women he has worked for who were more than just a bit flirtatious. He has never known how to handle that situation. “I’m a bit of an innocent,” he says. One member of our writers’ group dubbed him “Handyman of Love.” He laughed uproariously with the rest of us.

He joined the group because he wanted to rub elbows with real writers and learn whatever he could about writing. After he submitted a story about a motorcycle ride there was no doubt that he’s got what it takes. To this day he insists he can’t write.

©webart grab

Several members are married to men who aren’t very handy, so they hired John. Though my husband used to be able to fix just about anything, his skills are lost to escalating dementia. John has helped us out with tasks big and small over the past eighteen months.

Last summer, during an extremely hot spell, he painted our front door, the window shutters, the carport and installed new gutters along its edges. It was miserable weather for outside work on a brick house that radiates heat like a pizza oven.

The afternoon he finished he came around to the back where Leslie and I were sitting in the shade drinking iced coffee. He refused my offer of something cold. We chatted for a while, and John entertained us with his yarns while I punctuated with shouts that these were the stories he should write. He tries to hide behind the excuse that he doesn’t have a “voice.” I argue that his tales are his voice.

While we talked, he mopped his face and neck with a towel. When he stood up to leave, he said he had to put a clean tee-shirt on. Leslie and I looked at each other. We had no idea why he said that, but he got up, unfurled a shirt he’d had in his lap, and pulled it on over the shirt he was wearing.

He explained. “I’ve got to have a hug before I leave, but who would hug a sweaty handyman?”

“That’s a story, John!” I said, and hugged him back.

I figured he’d never write the story, so I did. Someone had to!

September 21, 2015

596 miles before we sleep.

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in Beautiful, Fun, Hilarity, Travels ¶ Tagged Family, Flowers ¶ 7 Comments

From Tennessee to the Canadian border, Interstate 81 lays down most of its 854.9 miles in Virginia, 324.9 to be precise. Paralleling the Appalachian Mountains, I-81 follows along Indian and early settler trails. A pretty ride if you’re in the passenger seat, but if you’re the driver zooming along at five or ten or fifteen miles over the limit, you can’t take your eyes off the road .

In Pennsylvania, heavy truck traffic labors up the hills while cars play hopscotch at terrifying speeds. Accidents that tie up traffic for hours are a given, and the drive is bum-numbing for passenger and driver. Until last week, I was always the passenger; now I’m the driver. Peter helped me brake, gasped occasionally, and pointed out interesting sights that I didn’t dare glance at.

Frackville, in Pennsylvania’s Wyoming Valley, was our destination, 379 miles from home, an overnight on the way to daughter Carolynn and husband Bill. It’s 596 miles door-to-door. Our stop was planned, but the relentless rain that jammed traffic into bumper-hugs wasn’t on our itinerary. What should have taken five hours, took more than six.

Driving is the best way to get there. Air travel doesn’t take long if you pay for a direct flight, but add in the drive to an airport, hours-early check-in, another hour to their home, and car travel proves quicker and cheaper. Then, when we return in a car stuffed with a huge pumpkin, three mums, gallons of fresh cider, jars of home-canned delights, boxes of cookies, as well as shopping finds and our bags, there are no added fees to pay.

When we neared Frackville, the GPS insisted on “hard right turns.” Wrong. After two loops on and off I-81, I turned hard left and there we were. Cold rain and wind hurried us inside. The motel was terrific — Holiday Inn Express — and there was a super breakfast bar the next morning.

Three more hours on the road and Carolynn, Bill and the dogs were waiting with big smiles, enveloping hugs, and doggy kisses.

The week was packed tighter than our car on the return — gourmet meals, cards, dominoes, dog walks, laughter, talking…lots of talking…especially when Carolynn’s friend Robin was around.

My maple walnut yum!

I’d already decided to drive home with no overnight. It is all downhill. We did stop for lunch at Frackville’s Dutch Pantry, noteworthy for its diner history, and treated ourselves to homemade ice cream.

No more non-stop drives in my future, though. Unh uh. I was reeling when we arrived. After 596 miles, my pillow called and visions of the week danced through my dreams.

Graceful anemones in pink tutus…

pirouette.

Orange begonias and pink phlox.

Heart-shaped rocks add love…

to the garden.

Rooster tells which way the wind blows

Potatoes dug, tomatoes ready.

Bill and Duffy read the sports page

Duffy likes the Cowboys.

Bella squeezes into tight spaces…

with Duffy close beside her.

Wooden drip.

Plate up.

Carolynn makes cherry pie.

Flakey and sweet/tart.

Peter, me, Carolynn

Anemone corps de ballet takes a final bow.

September 7, 2015

Summer’s last hurrah.

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in College, Football game, Fun ¶ Tagged Colors, Fall, Hurrahs ¶ 4 Comments

Today is Labor Day, summer’s last hurrah. For football lovers, it’s a day to be here, in our little burg.

Hokie Bird & Brutus Buckeye.

The Ohio State Buckeyes are in town to try to avenge last season’s loss to the Virginia Tech Hokies. Not only is it the only game in town, it is, according to today’s Roanoke Times’ Andy Bitter, “…the most anticipated game in the history of Lane Stadium.”

As a native Ohioan who used to collect buckeyes on my way home from elementary school, there was a time when my adrenaline surged at the sound of the OSU fight song:

“Fight the team across the field
show them Ohio’s here,
set the earth reverberating
with a mighty cheer,
rah rah rah…”

I even remember the 1958 OSU/Michigan game when OSU won in the final seconds, 20-14. Thanksgiving break and I was home from college, Ohio University. I watched the game on t.v., screaming and hollering as if I were an OSU coed, as if I were in Columbus.

Ohio Buckeye (Aesculus glabra), highly toxic when taken internally.

But, time passed, things changed. Now I live within sight and sound of Virginia Tech’s stadium. We can hear the roar of the crowd, see the glow of the lights, watch the fireworks.

Tailgating started before eight this morning. I passed some hearty-partiers on my morning walk. They may have had coffee for breakfast, but they were already having beer chasers. Cars with orange and maroon flags sailing have been rolling into town since yesterday. Grills are heating up, and there are likely turkey drumsticks on the menus, but not so roasted buckeyes, unless of course, they’re in the locker room after the game.

The only game OSU, the 2014 National Champions, lost last year was to VT, 35-21. Their coach has said they won’t really be national champs until they’ve beaten VT this year.

Yes, OSU has a bone to pick while they’re in town, and it’ll be a brutal match-up. OSU may have the national title and admittedly more depth, but VT has heart. I’ll be woo-hooing and “Hokie
hi-ing” from the comfort of my sofa, listening to my English husband grumble because “This isn’t football, this is a game for sissies who have to stop after every play to get further instruction…” I’ll boo him and cheer my team until I lose my voice.

First thing this morning, I put my Virginia Tech tee-shirt on. I’m ready. GO HOKIES!

Hokie Bird/Brutus Buckeye photo: Jim Stroup, 9/6/14
Buckeye photo: OSU College of Food, Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
YouTube video: CFB Film Study, 2014 OSU/VT game.

August 26, 2015

Helloo-o-o, birdbrain!

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in I'm not techno-savvy, Uncategorized ¶ Tagged OMG!, Uselessness ¶ 8 Comments

Walking along briskly early this morning, I heard a bird call, an almost human-sounding whistle. Wheeee whoo wheeee whoo. It seemed to be coming from the tree tops in the little woods I was passing.

Wheeee whooo wheeeee whoooo wheeee whoooo.

On and on it went. Persistent little thing, I thought. Hm, so persistent, I realized, that it couldn’t be a bird. Probably a car alarm, I decided, although it was too pleasant a sound for an alarm…

Oh-h no, who’s the bird brain? It was my phone which I carry in my pocket on my walks as dictated by my daughters. As I walked, listening intently to the “bird,” I missed a call that I only just now remembered to check, a call I didn’t want to miss. Nuts.

So now my ringtone is a “classic” that sounds just like the phones I grew up with:
ring-g, ring-g, ring-g, ring-g.

‘The Dodo’ drawing, Birdadorable Bonanza, 2009
Cartoon, Mike Keefe, The Denver Post, 2011

August 23, 2015

This is a bluebird day!

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in Natural beauty ¶ Tagged Blue Ridge, Colors, Inspiration, Sunshine ¶ 2 Comments

This morning started well. When I asked Nobby if he wanted to go for a walk he leapt right up and did his happy dance. Usually he waits for Peter, but sometimes it’s a long wait. My husband is not a morning person.

Across Main Street we went and up the hill towards the golf course. The humidity of recent days had evaporated. What a pleasant, sunny morning.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology

While Nobby sniffed every blade of grass, I had plenty of time to gaze at the mountain views and enjoy the day. Suddenly, a bluebird flew out of a tree a few feet away, followed quickly by a second.

We walked a bit further, then two more bluebirds zipped out of the next tree, and further still, I saw fifth and sixth streaks of blue, then seventh and eighth!

OK, I suspect it was really two bluebirds times four sightings, but it’s still a bluebird day.

As long as there are bluebirds, then there will be miracles and a way to find happiness.”

— Shirl Brunnell, I Hear Bluebirds, 1984

Woolwine House Bluebird Trail, Patrick County. Virginiabluebirds.org photo

August 14, 2015

Education, cultivation, imagination.

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in Fun, Natural beauty ¶ Tagged Flowers, Gardens, imagination, Inspiration ¶ 2 Comments

The only thing better than having tea and homemade peach muffins in a wisteria-covered pergola with daughter Leslie would have been to have tea and peach muffins with both daughters in that same pergola, but with the wisteria in bloom. Carolynn lives too far away for spur-o-moment outings.

Leslie and I visited the inventive, wildly imaginative “Simply Elemental” installation at the Hahn Horticulture Garden this week. It was fantastical.

Local artists used varied materials — mannequin parts, oil drums, fabrics and ribbons, glass, construction project remains, and rust — to create the show. One goal that inspired the group was to demonstrate that art doesn’t have to be framed or permanent to be enjoyed.

We enjoyed.

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The “Best College Review” website recently featured the one hundred most beautiful college campuses in America. Virginia Tech, number 52, was characterized with a photo of the iconic Burruss Hall. Here’s an excerpt from the text:

The Peggy Lee Hahn Horticulture Garden is a stunning spot on [Virginia Tech’s] 2600 acre grounds, adding considerable natural beauty to the school’s main…campus. Maples and dwarf conifers grace the lush, almost six-acre cultivated space, as do eye-catching wisteria flowers and a fish-filled stream that is 200 feet long. …

We who live here already knew about the Garden’s “considerable beauty.” Now we know about its considerable sense of humor, too.

The installation will be in place through September 30.

August 11, 2015

A garden as autobiography.

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in Natural beauty, Travels, Where to go ¶ Tagged Colors, Flowers, Gardens, Where to go ¶ 5 Comments

Beautiful gardens aren’t just about the flowers. Last month’s Friends of the Library Garden Tour was memorable for more than just the plantings. Yes, the flowers were lush, the colors, vivid, but it was the settings and the expanses, that captured my husband and me.

We drove along roads we hadn’t traveled before to visit seven gardens scattered across the county.

It would be hard to pick favorites, but the 1800s farmhouse lorded over by huge sycamores was special. A swooping green swathe to one side led to a gazebo perched atop a spring. The tiny stream, crisscrossed by little foot bridges, caught my fancy. Old-log guest houses nestled around the original house like chicks to a mother hen. A cellist and a violinist kept time with the breezes.

Oh, and the rope swing, did I mention the rope swing hanging high from the tallest sycamore? I wanted try it, but when I attempted to lower myself onto the wooden seat, my knees wouldn’t cooperate. Its height was set for little children. Just as well, I might have launched myself into the next county if I’d been able to soar as high as it could go.

Another garden’s entrance was framed by an old catalpa tree. Set against a hillside, the back of the original farmhouse was ringed by brilliant day lilies as colorful as ladies’ hats at an English wedding. Conifers, hardwoods, and shrubs intermingled perfectly. Interesting rocks and glittering crystals lay amongst the plantings — jewels on grandmother’s Sunday dress. Best of all was an old log cabin set into the scape. The vast field up and away to the right and back of the house hinted at more joy beyond.

A third garden, edged by a stream, had a decidedly fairytale look. Large trees hovered and whimsical touches all ’round made me wonder if three bears or maybe seven little people lived there. The large koi pond was punctuated with stepping stones and bright orange table and chairs. The owners accessorize their garden with “hand-me-downs, found objects, and thrift store purchases.”

This trio of pictures, taken at my favorite garden, exemplify my blog’s name: Wherever you go…there you are.

: ‘Potty’ house…

: me…

: …Peter

Each of the gardens on the tour had their own special magic, memories brought home to caption my photos from that “once upon a time” day.

Click on photos to enlarge them; use arrows to scroll through each grouping.

July 25, 2015

We don’t play with a full deck.

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in Forget, Fun, Hilarity ¶ Tagged Age-related, Gadgetry, Red Hatters ¶ 5 Comments

Wherever a bevy of women of a certain age gather there’s sure to be laughter. A group of dames I consort with, thirty-three if we’re all present, has had some uproarious times over the fourteen years we’ve been together.

A splinter group of us play canasta one Wednesday a month at O’Charley’s. This card-playing arm of the bunch has been “melding” for eight or ten years. Naturally, we’ve, um, matured and some, or maybe all, of us have become forgetful or addled or maybe even doolally.

Many can’t shuffle the cards any more thanks to arthritis and other problems, but we do have several battery-operated card-shufflers amongst us. They make the most annoying sound and seldom work properly. When we use them people in the adjacent bar look our way.

Everyone in our foursome this past Wednesday — AJ, JoJo, Leanne, me — forgot some rule: deal thirteen cards or eleven? is an eight worth five or ten? what’s wrong with two wild cards and two naturals in one meld?

Our silly mistakes kept us laughing, but then we veered to a discussion about memory loss. Because my husband has dementia I’m considered the “expert.” Someone asked how you would know if forgetting was just old age or a sign of dementia?

I told them that counting backwards by sevens was a test Peter’s doctor always does. Several years ago, he could count backwards so quickly that she would stop him when he got to 51 saying “Well done, good enough.”

“Why I could never do that,” AJ huffed. JoJo agreed, and I knew I wouldn’t get below 93 without pencil and paper. Leanne, the best of us at numbers, started counting, and soon we all helped by “air writing” the figures. We laughed hysterically at ourselves, four women on the shady side of seventy who couldn’t do simple subtraction. We managed to count as far as 65. “We did pretty well, didn’t we?” Joanne said.

“Yeah, but it took all four of us to do it,” Leanne said.

I love it when stars align, four-leaf clovers stand taller, and blog post ideas spring from unexpected sources. The bit of trivia below came from the widower of a dear friend who always had a joke and who I long ago dubbed the group’s “Raconteur Royale.”

Common entertainment [in the good ol’ days] included playing cards. However, there was a tax levied when purchasing playing cards…applicable [only] to the Ace of Spades. To avoid paying the tax, people would purchase 51 cards instead. Yet, since most games require 52 cards, these people were thought to be stupid or dumb because they weren’t ‘playing with a full deck.'”

July 4, 2015

Oh-h say can you see?

By judithclarkewrites ¶ Posted in Natural beauty, Nostalgia ¶ Tagged Holidays, Nostalgia ¶ 11 Comments

Thank goodness my morning walks often inspire ideas for my blog posts, and, thank goodness, this morning was no exception once I spotted fog blanketing the turf grass research fields. The Fourths of July in my memory are steamy and blindingly sunny. Today, not so much.

Even though posting new blogs is at the writer’s whim, I pile guilt upon myself when I don’t give equal time to both my sites. June was Alzheimer’s Awareness month and with Father’s Day thrown in, I concentrated on “Dementia isn’t funny.” The heap of guilt on my shoulders resembles the shoulder pads 1940’s movie stars sported.

But as I walked, I thought, ah, July 4 and it’s not blazingly, meltingly hot. An idea blossomed. I looked at my garden when I got home and realized how striking the colors are by dawn’s early light. While I took these photos, the sun was a flashlight — on, off, on, off — but it was the gentle mist that made the colors glow.