Tour Guide to the Car Wash
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Shortly after I moved home again, I discovered my new avocation as tour guide. Friends visit several times a year, usually for a week or longer and I want for them to see and to love this land as much as I do. I haul out my lengthy list of places to go, people to see and things to do. Frequently I hear, “Why did you move back to Harlem. There is nothin’ to do around here.” Always, we run out of time to do it all. My list includes the usual places, the unusual places and those under the classification, Huh?
My friends and I mull over the itinerary. Each morning we choose the day’s items and events. We know each day is a movable feast of fun. But nothing is cast in concrete. Detours are inevitable. Rocks in the road are guaranteed. If we don’t cover much ground that day or the café with the best buffalo burger is closed, there is always tomorrow. Or the trip next spring. We journey into the unknown, like Lewis and Clark.
We discovered The Car Wash quite by accident. My guests and I had spent the day touring Havre Beneath the Streets and the Clack Museum and two used-book stores. We had time to kill before meeting another friend at the supper club for an evening of feast. I pulled into the gas station to fill the tank. When the pump screen inquired if I wanted the Super-Duper Scrub and Rinse, I pushed “Yes”.
“Is this part of the tour?” my friends joked.
“Certainly,” I replied. “This may be the high-light of the day.” Actually, I was talking through my hat, since this was my first time at this particular car wash.
I eased the car into the enclosed wash-ateria. Torrential waters rushed at us from all directions. My van was soaped, rinsed and scrubbed with blasts of water. But then, when the three-colored polish, all pink, blue and yellow blobs, plopped onto the windshield, we cheered with delight at the unexpected beauty. It was as if Jackson Pollack painted a masterpiece while we watched. And that day a tradition was born.
Now when guests arrive, even before unpacking, they ask me, “When do we go to the car wash?”
I have gathered props for an adventure of living theatre at the car wash. I have appropriate music which includes such greats as, “See the USA in your Chevrolet,” “The Ballad of Thunder Road,” “Lost Highway’” “Hot Rod Lincoln,” and “Beep Beep.” While we wait our turn, I pass out party hats, streamers and noise makers. When we drive through the Rocker Panel Blaster and shift into “park,” I hand out the genuine plastic champagne glasses and pop the cork on the Sparkling Cider. When the tri-color polish hits the windows in explosions of pink, blue and yellow, we break into riotous celebration, horns toot, clackers clack, streamers stream and we lift a toast to the world-class tourist experience.
During the final rinse, we “bottoms up” our cider, put the party hats and noise makers back into the basket, exit slowly through the desert blast of hot air, and head out for the next stop on our tour.
I take my job as tour guide seriously. I am eager to initiate my next guests. After all, I have a reputation to uphold.
Sondra Ashton
Home Again in Harlem
January 30, 2009
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Friday, February 19, 2010
Romancing the Dump
Romancing the Dump
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There was a knock on my door. I had been back in Harlem only a few weeks. It had been a long day, opening boxes, finding places for tools, putting supplies away. I was tired and dusty and not expecting company.
I opened the door and the man standing on the other side asked, “Want to go to the dump?”
“Is this a date?”
“I noticed your driveway is full of boxes and bags. I thought you might want to haul them to the dump,” he explained. “And I brought along a couple beers.”
“Umm, yes on hauling stuff away and no on the beer. Just let me change my shirt.”
The man is an old acquaintance from my high school days, one of few who have remained. Most of my classmates have moved on to greener pastures, so to speak, to other towns or out of state for better jobs. Tonight, surprisingly, he is all dressed up, combed and polished and ironed. I have seen him several times around town since I came home, wearing dingy jeans, mud boots, ripped jacket, and the ubiquitous stained farm-equipment or insurance-company cap. He used to dress pretty spiffy in high school. I remember that you could have sliced cheese with the crease in his jeans.
We never dated back then. He was a few classes ahead of me in school and I knew my Dad would never have approved. Besides, I was such a priss he never noticed me. What I remember most was his reputation. Partying and fighting, fast cars, ducktail hair cut, white tee shirt with pack of Camels rolled in the sleeve. He still has that hair cut.
We loaded up my trash. And off we roared, out of town, up the hill to the dump, left front fender flapping. We heaved the stuff into the transfer trailers, got back into the pick-up. He must have figured I was a modern woman so he let me open my own door. He eased over to the fence.
We sat there overlooking the vista, the Milk River Valley and the town beyond. It was a clear night and the lights of town melded into the lights of Fort Belknap across the river and the stars above dipped down a bit just to be part of the picture. It truly was beautiful.
We sat quietly for a while. Then talking about the old days came easy. We remembered the town when it bustled with commerce on Saturday afternoons, when we students crowded into the matinee at the Grand, then afterwards had cheeseburgers and milk shakes at the Confectionary. We talked about friends long gone and loves long past. Then he drove me home.
Since then the Harlem dump has become an integral part of my over-all tour package when I have visitors from out of state and want to show them a good time. The view from the dump is beautiful in all seasons and all times of the day. The scene is beautiful with snow covering each dip and fold of ground and the mountains beyond. It is beautiful with emerging greens of spring, or when clothed in the golden hues of autumn. My favorite time is when the 4:00 freight rolls through from the east with the grasses of summer providing the backdrop, both ranges of mountains purple in the distance, and a few cumulus clouds plumped in the sky.
And I love the priceless look on my friends’ faces when I ask, “Want to go to the dump?”
______________________________________________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________________________________________________
There was a knock on my door. I had been back in Harlem only a few weeks. It had been a long day, opening boxes, finding places for tools, putting supplies away. I was tired and dusty and not expecting company.
I opened the door and the man standing on the other side asked, “Want to go to the dump?”
“Is this a date?”
“I noticed your driveway is full of boxes and bags. I thought you might want to haul them to the dump,” he explained. “And I brought along a couple beers.”
“Umm, yes on hauling stuff away and no on the beer. Just let me change my shirt.”
The man is an old acquaintance from my high school days, one of few who have remained. Most of my classmates have moved on to greener pastures, so to speak, to other towns or out of state for better jobs. Tonight, surprisingly, he is all dressed up, combed and polished and ironed. I have seen him several times around town since I came home, wearing dingy jeans, mud boots, ripped jacket, and the ubiquitous stained farm-equipment or insurance-company cap. He used to dress pretty spiffy in high school. I remember that you could have sliced cheese with the crease in his jeans.
We never dated back then. He was a few classes ahead of me in school and I knew my Dad would never have approved. Besides, I was such a priss he never noticed me. What I remember most was his reputation. Partying and fighting, fast cars, ducktail hair cut, white tee shirt with pack of Camels rolled in the sleeve. He still has that hair cut.
We loaded up my trash. And off we roared, out of town, up the hill to the dump, left front fender flapping. We heaved the stuff into the transfer trailers, got back into the pick-up. He must have figured I was a modern woman so he let me open my own door. He eased over to the fence.
We sat there overlooking the vista, the Milk River Valley and the town beyond. It was a clear night and the lights of town melded into the lights of Fort Belknap across the river and the stars above dipped down a bit just to be part of the picture. It truly was beautiful.
We sat quietly for a while. Then talking about the old days came easy. We remembered the town when it bustled with commerce on Saturday afternoons, when we students crowded into the matinee at the Grand, then afterwards had cheeseburgers and milk shakes at the Confectionary. We talked about friends long gone and loves long past. Then he drove me home.
Since then the Harlem dump has become an integral part of my over-all tour package when I have visitors from out of state and want to show them a good time. The view from the dump is beautiful in all seasons and all times of the day. The scene is beautiful with snow covering each dip and fold of ground and the mountains beyond. It is beautiful with emerging greens of spring, or when clothed in the golden hues of autumn. My favorite time is when the 4:00 freight rolls through from the east with the grasses of summer providing the backdrop, both ranges of mountains purple in the distance, and a few cumulus clouds plumped in the sky.
And I love the priceless look on my friends’ faces when I ask, “Want to go to the dump?”
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Boys Noise
an almost true story
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Boys Noise
Little boys make noise, all kinds of noise, noise all the time. In the space of one hour, dredging canals and moats and constructing forts, in the sandbox, any small boy imitates sounds of dump trucks, jets overhead, barking dogs, steam shovels, armed battalions, and weird green outer-space creatures. This typical boy behavior is allowed and encouraged.
Meanwhile, in the parlor, surrounded with reproductions of Victorian furniture, anti-macassars and ceramic figurines, his little sister is quietly setting the table with the miniature china tea set or tucking dolly up for a nap or turning the pages of a book and silently reading the story to herself. That little girl in the starched and ruffled pinafore is me. I play quietly, with decorum, as I have been taught. I stay clean. I pick up my toys and put them away when it is time for tea. This quiet behavior is praised and encouraged. I am “good”.
I tiptoe to the window and peer between velvet draperies, see the sandbox, trucks and shovels and pails strewn everywhere. My brother is tearing around the back yard, trailing half a Sahara of sand, loudly machine gunning enemy troops hiding in the hedges. I purse my lips. Boys are so noisy.
Now that I am grown, I am acutely aware that making noises is a fundamental skill I lack. Nowhere is this more frustrating than when I must explain to my mechanic, over the phone, the strange noises my car is making. He always asks.
“What’s it sound like?” the mechanic, we will call him Ralph, asks.
I hold the phone in silence, pucker up my mouth, practice different configurations with my lips, consider how to reproduce the particular noise my car is making, struggle to bring the sounds from my throat. Fear strikes. I am paralyzed. Girlhood training overrides necessity. I cannot utter a sound.
Finally I gather my courage and resort to words. I am good with words. “Ralph, remember when you were a little boy, when you took a clothespin and attached playing cards to the spokes of your bicycle?”
Silence on his end of the line. Maybe Ralph is remembering. Maybe Ralph is scratching.
“It is kind of like that noise, but then add a low growl like a dog defending a bone.”
“Might be the pulley attached to the serpentine belt is sticking for some reason. Or could be the AC unit. It’s probably the AC unit. That will cost more. Course it could be the catalytic converter. That’s pretty expensive too.” Ralph began adding up the possibilities. He belched.
“My car doesn’t have air conditioning,” I admit.
“You don’t have air?” He sounds incredulous. I feel personally defective for not having air conditioning in my car. Mechanics always do that to me.
Wednesday I pull in front of Ralph’s Repair and Body Shop. By now my van not only clicks and clacks, and growls but also is possessed by shrieking banshees.
When I open the shop door, Ralph tilts back in his chair. “No, it don’t sound like what you said.” With his mouth, he imitates cards pinned to bicycle spokes with a small additional growl. “Now here’s what it really sounds like.” The noise which emerges from Ralph’s mouth could be a recording of my van driving in, it is so perfect.
I grimace, “What is wrong with it?”
“Don’t know,” he answers, and gets up, hitches his britches and spits. “When it makes that noise, it’s usually a pulley, but I won’t know which one until I tear it all apart.”
Helplessly, I hand over my keys and prepare for a long wait.
After many hours, numerous parts and several hundred dollars, Ralph glares at me as he hands me my keys and receipt. “You mighta called when it first started sounding like this.” And again, he orchestrates the noise my van was making when I first began to worry that something might be wrong. “So why didn’t you call then—it would’ve saved you a lot of money.”
I stare back mutely, but politely. “Childhood.” It is all I can think to say. I turn to leave.
“Your speedometer sticks, did you know that?” Ralph asks. “Sounds like this.” And as I left the shop, he made the sound of a sticking speedometer.
Sondra Ashton
Feb 4, 09
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______________________________________________________________________________________________
Boys Noise
Little boys make noise, all kinds of noise, noise all the time. In the space of one hour, dredging canals and moats and constructing forts, in the sandbox, any small boy imitates sounds of dump trucks, jets overhead, barking dogs, steam shovels, armed battalions, and weird green outer-space creatures. This typical boy behavior is allowed and encouraged.
Meanwhile, in the parlor, surrounded with reproductions of Victorian furniture, anti-macassars and ceramic figurines, his little sister is quietly setting the table with the miniature china tea set or tucking dolly up for a nap or turning the pages of a book and silently reading the story to herself. That little girl in the starched and ruffled pinafore is me. I play quietly, with decorum, as I have been taught. I stay clean. I pick up my toys and put them away when it is time for tea. This quiet behavior is praised and encouraged. I am “good”.
I tiptoe to the window and peer between velvet draperies, see the sandbox, trucks and shovels and pails strewn everywhere. My brother is tearing around the back yard, trailing half a Sahara of sand, loudly machine gunning enemy troops hiding in the hedges. I purse my lips. Boys are so noisy.
Now that I am grown, I am acutely aware that making noises is a fundamental skill I lack. Nowhere is this more frustrating than when I must explain to my mechanic, over the phone, the strange noises my car is making. He always asks.
“What’s it sound like?” the mechanic, we will call him Ralph, asks.
I hold the phone in silence, pucker up my mouth, practice different configurations with my lips, consider how to reproduce the particular noise my car is making, struggle to bring the sounds from my throat. Fear strikes. I am paralyzed. Girlhood training overrides necessity. I cannot utter a sound.
Finally I gather my courage and resort to words. I am good with words. “Ralph, remember when you were a little boy, when you took a clothespin and attached playing cards to the spokes of your bicycle?”
Silence on his end of the line. Maybe Ralph is remembering. Maybe Ralph is scratching.
“It is kind of like that noise, but then add a low growl like a dog defending a bone.”
“Might be the pulley attached to the serpentine belt is sticking for some reason. Or could be the AC unit. It’s probably the AC unit. That will cost more. Course it could be the catalytic converter. That’s pretty expensive too.” Ralph began adding up the possibilities. He belched.
“My car doesn’t have air conditioning,” I admit.
“You don’t have air?” He sounds incredulous. I feel personally defective for not having air conditioning in my car. Mechanics always do that to me.
Wednesday I pull in front of Ralph’s Repair and Body Shop. By now my van not only clicks and clacks, and growls but also is possessed by shrieking banshees.
When I open the shop door, Ralph tilts back in his chair. “No, it don’t sound like what you said.” With his mouth, he imitates cards pinned to bicycle spokes with a small additional growl. “Now here’s what it really sounds like.” The noise which emerges from Ralph’s mouth could be a recording of my van driving in, it is so perfect.
I grimace, “What is wrong with it?”
“Don’t know,” he answers, and gets up, hitches his britches and spits. “When it makes that noise, it’s usually a pulley, but I won’t know which one until I tear it all apart.”
Helplessly, I hand over my keys and prepare for a long wait.
After many hours, numerous parts and several hundred dollars, Ralph glares at me as he hands me my keys and receipt. “You mighta called when it first started sounding like this.” And again, he orchestrates the noise my van was making when I first began to worry that something might be wrong. “So why didn’t you call then—it would’ve saved you a lot of money.”
I stare back mutely, but politely. “Childhood.” It is all I can think to say. I turn to leave.
“Your speedometer sticks, did you know that?” Ralph asks. “Sounds like this.” And as I left the shop, he made the sound of a sticking speedometer.
Sondra Ashton
Feb 4, 09
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The Montana face
does this sound familiar???
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The Montana Face
Recently, representing Harlem, I attended a leadership conference in Great Falls with forty-eight others from small towns all over Montana. . The two women facilitators were from Virginia. After introducing themselves, they stood in front of the group and shouted out a lively “Good Morning!” They were used to southern enthusiasms such as “Amen, Sista, tell it.” We sat quietly like glum lots. They try again with another rousing “Good Morning!!!” Throughout the room rose a spotty response.
One of the facilitators, frustrated, finally demanded, “What is it with you people?”
A woman from another small town, maybe it was Malta, stood up and explained, “It is the Montana Face. When we are out in public or in a strange situation or unsure of how to act, this is the face we put on. It is polite, deadpan in expression and gives nothing away.”
Her explanation broke the ice and we all laughed. Now the two Virginians greeted us with “GOOD MORNING, MONTANA!!!” and we made the walls bulge outward with the boom our reply. The weekend continued with loud expression, noisy enthusiasm and kinetic energy.
To see the Montana Face right where you live, just saunter on over to the local café where the men gather for coffee and politics every morning. There is such a café in every town. One day, in our café, I walked over to the group sitting around the table. I knew two or three of the men. I greeted them and asked a question, seeking information. What I then saw was a complete circle of the Montana Face, like they had circled the wagons against the invasion of a stranger, a woman. I felt like a maverick cut out of the herd. Red faced and tongue tied, I turned and left. Someday this group might invite me in, but these days when I enter the café, I walk past them with a brief wave and make no eye contact.
One evening, in the same café, I sat at a table near a couple who have been married over half a century. They ate their salads, the waitress poured more coffee. She brought their chicken-fried steak. The couple ate their meals without once exchanging a word, nor did they look at each other. They finished with pie and more coffee. Each wore the perfect Montana Face, as is appropriate in public.
Closely related to the Montana Face is the Montana Wave. This is the highway version of the Face, and consists of a slight lift of the forefinger from the steering wheel, signifying a greeting. Once you cross the state line into Montana you will begin to see this greeting. If the vehicle sports Montana plates, look for the flicker of friendliness from perfect strangers. But, especially when you are in your home county, be on the lookout and wave back. One day I walked into the café and was accosted by a friend, “I saw you on the way to Chinook yesterday. You didn’t wave.” “I did not see you,” is not an acceptable excuse.
A logical mutation of the Wave is the Montana Point. We all will remember our mothers hissing at us while grabbing our hands, “Don’t point. It’s not polite.” Being a naturally inventive people, and needing a method of indication in a country where the visibility is often ten miles or more, we Montanans get around the impolite finger point by pointing with our lips. You bring your lips together and push out in the direction you wish to indicate. This may be accompanied by a slight upward tilt of the head. A cruder version is the chin point.
A natural outgrowth of the Montana Face is Montana Speak. This relates to the frontier myth of the rugged individual, a myth we hold dear to our hearts. Montana Speak is heard everywhere but most easily spotted at such gatherings as city council meetings or around that table in the café. It contains such well worn phrases as “Nobody in the government is going to tell me how to or where to or when to, followed by such expressions as “Run my cows.” “Build my fence.” “Get a permit.” “Wear seat belts.” The list is unending, and includes injunctions for and against smoking, drinking and shooting guns. I’m not saying this is good or this is bad. Montana Speak is a part of who we are.
We Montanans are doers and survivors, a ‘let’s get it done’ people. We are impatient with reliance on government grants, don’t have much use for feasibility studies, numerous committees, and long waits. If we need it, we do it, find it, or make it. Remember that table in the café? The folks sitting around that table instigate much of the action that keeps this empty yet vital section of our country going. Next time I go in for coffee and a cinnamon roll, I think I just might smile in their direction and say “Howdy” as I go past.
Sondra Ashton
Written February 6, 2009
_________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________
The Montana Face
Recently, representing Harlem, I attended a leadership conference in Great Falls with forty-eight others from small towns all over Montana. . The two women facilitators were from Virginia. After introducing themselves, they stood in front of the group and shouted out a lively “Good Morning!” They were used to southern enthusiasms such as “Amen, Sista, tell it.” We sat quietly like glum lots. They try again with another rousing “Good Morning!!!” Throughout the room rose a spotty response.
One of the facilitators, frustrated, finally demanded, “What is it with you people?”
A woman from another small town, maybe it was Malta, stood up and explained, “It is the Montana Face. When we are out in public or in a strange situation or unsure of how to act, this is the face we put on. It is polite, deadpan in expression and gives nothing away.”
Her explanation broke the ice and we all laughed. Now the two Virginians greeted us with “GOOD MORNING, MONTANA!!!” and we made the walls bulge outward with the boom our reply. The weekend continued with loud expression, noisy enthusiasm and kinetic energy.
To see the Montana Face right where you live, just saunter on over to the local café where the men gather for coffee and politics every morning. There is such a café in every town. One day, in our café, I walked over to the group sitting around the table. I knew two or three of the men. I greeted them and asked a question, seeking information. What I then saw was a complete circle of the Montana Face, like they had circled the wagons against the invasion of a stranger, a woman. I felt like a maverick cut out of the herd. Red faced and tongue tied, I turned and left. Someday this group might invite me in, but these days when I enter the café, I walk past them with a brief wave and make no eye contact.
One evening, in the same café, I sat at a table near a couple who have been married over half a century. They ate their salads, the waitress poured more coffee. She brought their chicken-fried steak. The couple ate their meals without once exchanging a word, nor did they look at each other. They finished with pie and more coffee. Each wore the perfect Montana Face, as is appropriate in public.
Closely related to the Montana Face is the Montana Wave. This is the highway version of the Face, and consists of a slight lift of the forefinger from the steering wheel, signifying a greeting. Once you cross the state line into Montana you will begin to see this greeting. If the vehicle sports Montana plates, look for the flicker of friendliness from perfect strangers. But, especially when you are in your home county, be on the lookout and wave back. One day I walked into the café and was accosted by a friend, “I saw you on the way to Chinook yesterday. You didn’t wave.” “I did not see you,” is not an acceptable excuse.
A logical mutation of the Wave is the Montana Point. We all will remember our mothers hissing at us while grabbing our hands, “Don’t point. It’s not polite.” Being a naturally inventive people, and needing a method of indication in a country where the visibility is often ten miles or more, we Montanans get around the impolite finger point by pointing with our lips. You bring your lips together and push out in the direction you wish to indicate. This may be accompanied by a slight upward tilt of the head. A cruder version is the chin point.
A natural outgrowth of the Montana Face is Montana Speak. This relates to the frontier myth of the rugged individual, a myth we hold dear to our hearts. Montana Speak is heard everywhere but most easily spotted at such gatherings as city council meetings or around that table in the café. It contains such well worn phrases as “Nobody in the government is going to tell me how to or where to or when to, followed by such expressions as “Run my cows.” “Build my fence.” “Get a permit.” “Wear seat belts.” The list is unending, and includes injunctions for and against smoking, drinking and shooting guns. I’m not saying this is good or this is bad. Montana Speak is a part of who we are.
We Montanans are doers and survivors, a ‘let’s get it done’ people. We are impatient with reliance on government grants, don’t have much use for feasibility studies, numerous committees, and long waits. If we need it, we do it, find it, or make it. Remember that table in the café? The folks sitting around that table instigate much of the action that keeps this empty yet vital section of our country going. Next time I go in for coffee and a cinnamon roll, I think I just might smile in their direction and say “Howdy” as I go past.
Sondra Ashton
Written February 6, 2009
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Our Bodies, Ourselves
Educating Grandma
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While visiting my daughter, I asked, “Have you begun teaching Jean Marie the facts of life yet?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mom. She’s only seven.”
“Today children are older much younger,” I replied. “Besides, this one is precocious beyond her years. You cannot start giving her information too soon.”
Based on the look my daughter shot at me as she rolled her eyes, I decided to take on the educational project myself. One of my granddaughter’s favorite things is to have tea with her Grandma in real china cups with sugar cubes and real cream and with special little tea cookies I make just for her. I poured the tea and we creamed and sugared and put cookies on our saucers. “So, Jean Marie, let’s talk about our bodies.”
“Okay, Gram. What do you need to know?”
This set me back on my heels. It was not an auspicious beginning.
“Actually, Grandma, I’ve been thinking a lot about my body. Like, what keeps the skin on our arms and legs? If we didn’t have the skin, would our arms and legs and bellies and backs just go flinging off into space? So what makes the skin stay in place? It’s awfully thin, you know. And who puts the blood inside us. And how do they get it there. And what if I cut myself and I bleeded it all out? We gotta think about these things, Grandma. And what really happens to our food. Oh, I know what people say, Grandma, but really! I want the real answers, not the make-believe ones. I am a big girl now and I can handle it.”
“Well,” I stalled. This session was not going well at all and was much different from what I had in mind.
“Grandma, why do you hear your heart beat only at night when you can’t sleep and you don’t ever hear it during the daytime?”
Finally, a question I can respond to. “When you can’t sleep at night, Jean Marie, are you worried about the monsters under your bed?”
“Don’t be such a silly, Gram,” she giggled. “There are no bed monsters. Are there monsters under your bed, Grandma?” She found this inordinately funny.
“Never mind,” I said. “Have another cookie.”
“No thanks. Mom is making my favorite lasagna for dinner. Mmmmm.” Jean Marie snuggled into my lap and put her hands on my face. “Grandma, why do you have that long white hair on your chin? Would you like me to help you pull it out? Do you have that little silver puller thing? How did that white hair get there and what makes it so long? It really looks funny, Grandma.”
My effort at education was an abject failure. I needed to retrench. I’ll try again next week. Or maybe next year. Or maybe just leave it to my daughter, who is a family counselor. It’s not my fault she waited too late.
“Grandma, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or nothing,” Jean Marie scrunched up her face and looked me over critically, “but you probably should quit wearing your bikini. Besides, bikinis are sooooo out of fashion. Let’s go shopping together and I can help you find yourself a cute one piece. I’ll help you pick it out.”
“Jean Marie,’ I said, making one last attempt, “next time would you like to talk about boys.”
“Sure, Grandma, anything you need to know, you can ask me. And I promise not to tell Mom.”
________________________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
While visiting my daughter, I asked, “Have you begun teaching Jean Marie the facts of life yet?”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Mom. She’s only seven.”
“Today children are older much younger,” I replied. “Besides, this one is precocious beyond her years. You cannot start giving her information too soon.”
Based on the look my daughter shot at me as she rolled her eyes, I decided to take on the educational project myself. One of my granddaughter’s favorite things is to have tea with her Grandma in real china cups with sugar cubes and real cream and with special little tea cookies I make just for her. I poured the tea and we creamed and sugared and put cookies on our saucers. “So, Jean Marie, let’s talk about our bodies.”
“Okay, Gram. What do you need to know?”
This set me back on my heels. It was not an auspicious beginning.
“Actually, Grandma, I’ve been thinking a lot about my body. Like, what keeps the skin on our arms and legs? If we didn’t have the skin, would our arms and legs and bellies and backs just go flinging off into space? So what makes the skin stay in place? It’s awfully thin, you know. And who puts the blood inside us. And how do they get it there. And what if I cut myself and I bleeded it all out? We gotta think about these things, Grandma. And what really happens to our food. Oh, I know what people say, Grandma, but really! I want the real answers, not the make-believe ones. I am a big girl now and I can handle it.”
“Well,” I stalled. This session was not going well at all and was much different from what I had in mind.
“Grandma, why do you hear your heart beat only at night when you can’t sleep and you don’t ever hear it during the daytime?”
Finally, a question I can respond to. “When you can’t sleep at night, Jean Marie, are you worried about the monsters under your bed?”
“Don’t be such a silly, Gram,” she giggled. “There are no bed monsters. Are there monsters under your bed, Grandma?” She found this inordinately funny.
“Never mind,” I said. “Have another cookie.”
“No thanks. Mom is making my favorite lasagna for dinner. Mmmmm.” Jean Marie snuggled into my lap and put her hands on my face. “Grandma, why do you have that long white hair on your chin? Would you like me to help you pull it out? Do you have that little silver puller thing? How did that white hair get there and what makes it so long? It really looks funny, Grandma.”
My effort at education was an abject failure. I needed to retrench. I’ll try again next week. Or maybe next year. Or maybe just leave it to my daughter, who is a family counselor. It’s not my fault she waited too late.
“Grandma, I don’t want to hurt your feelings or nothing,” Jean Marie scrunched up her face and looked me over critically, “but you probably should quit wearing your bikini. Besides, bikinis are sooooo out of fashion. Let’s go shopping together and I can help you find yourself a cute one piece. I’ll help you pick it out.”
“Jean Marie,’ I said, making one last attempt, “next time would you like to talk about boys.”
“Sure, Grandma, anything you need to know, you can ask me. And I promise not to tell Mom.”
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Friday, January 8, 2010
Mourning the Death of the Cajun Cafe'
Some dreams never disappear completely.
Mourning the Death of the Cajun Café
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I came across the derelict when I was driving my van crammed with furniture and boxes on my move back home to Montana . The building had obviously been long abandoned. A corner of the roof threatened to collapse. Windows were broken and a door hung loose. A warped and peeling sign across the front announced that this heap of debris had once been the Cajun Café. A homemade “For Sale” sign stood in the yard. Long way from Louisiana , I thought.
I was on that scenic section of US Highway 2, half-way between Bonners Ferry and Troy . Neither place was a major population center. The only residents up here in the north woods appeared to be moose and lodge-pole pine. Who would have opened a Cajun café, definitely a niche restaurant, out in the middle of nowhere?
But the Café was once somebody’s dream. With that thought my imagination took over. I hate to see a dream die. I have a friend long retired from the restaurant business. We often talked about what made an eatery work, in that idle way of people who enjoy good food.
So that evening I phoned him. “Got a business opportunity for you, a little fixer-upper.” I described the place, left out several pertinent details, emphasized ‘potential’, talked fast past ‘location’ and tried to sell a bill of goods around ‘tourist’ and ‘seasonal’.
A few months later my friend drove this route with me. When I spotted the old Cajun Cafe I eased off the road into the driveway. “There she is. A business opportunity waiting to happen.” He laughed. “A fixer-upper, huh?” “Build it, they will come,” I replied. “Are you kidding? Who is here to come?”
That tumble-down structure along the highway entertained us for nearly four years. We imagined a Saturday night at the Cajun Café. The Gumbo Special. Live music. Elbow-to-elbow customers who rode snowmobiles from their cabins off the grid across the trackless wilderness. Plenty of good food and with beer to swill it down. Belches and scratches, music blaring, fights on the dance floor. Good honest fun.
After that, whenever I made the trip, I would report on the condition of the Cajun Café and assure my friend that nobody had slipped in and bought it out from under him, that it was still available.
Until last winter. A fire had severely razed the site. I felt too sad to report this tragic turn of events. But recently my friend drove out to see me and took the northern route. My phone rang, “It’s gone,” he said. “A fire. Still I wonder who the guy was who built a Cajun restaurant way out here.”
I’ll be driving that same route soon. I’ll leave flowers at the site, flowers to commemorate a dream gone, someone’s hopes and aspirations up in flames. But dang, I can still picture the fire roaring in the cast iron wood-stove in the corner, shrimp and catfish sizzling on the grill, my friend pulling nozzles and filling beer mugs, his wife carrying heaping plates of jambalaya to the customers sitting at trestle tables in their mukluks and Carhartts, snowmobiles clustered outside the door, zydeco on the jukebox; in short, a community center where neighbors meet, wild game is bartered for firewood, deals are made, disputes are settled and young folks fall in love. Let the good times roll.
Sondra Ashton
sondrajean@mtintouch.net
Havre Daily News: Home Again
November 12, 2009
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Mourning the Death of the Cajun Café
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
I came across the derelict when I was driving my van crammed with furniture and boxes on my move back home to Montana . The building had obviously been long abandoned. A corner of the roof threatened to collapse. Windows were broken and a door hung loose. A warped and peeling sign across the front announced that this heap of debris had once been the Cajun Café. A homemade “For Sale” sign stood in the yard. Long way from Louisiana , I thought.
I was on that scenic section of US Highway 2, half-way between Bonners Ferry and Troy . Neither place was a major population center. The only residents up here in the north woods appeared to be moose and lodge-pole pine. Who would have opened a Cajun café, definitely a niche restaurant, out in the middle of nowhere?
But the Café was once somebody’s dream. With that thought my imagination took over. I hate to see a dream die. I have a friend long retired from the restaurant business. We often talked about what made an eatery work, in that idle way of people who enjoy good food.
So that evening I phoned him. “Got a business opportunity for you, a little fixer-upper.” I described the place, left out several pertinent details, emphasized ‘potential’, talked fast past ‘location’ and tried to sell a bill of goods around ‘tourist’ and ‘seasonal’.
A few months later my friend drove this route with me. When I spotted the old Cajun Cafe I eased off the road into the driveway. “There she is. A business opportunity waiting to happen.” He laughed. “A fixer-upper, huh?” “Build it, they will come,” I replied. “Are you kidding? Who is here to come?”
That tumble-down structure along the highway entertained us for nearly four years. We imagined a Saturday night at the Cajun Café. The Gumbo Special. Live music. Elbow-to-elbow customers who rode snowmobiles from their cabins off the grid across the trackless wilderness. Plenty of good food and with beer to swill it down. Belches and scratches, music blaring, fights on the dance floor. Good honest fun.
After that, whenever I made the trip, I would report on the condition of the Cajun Café and assure my friend that nobody had slipped in and bought it out from under him, that it was still available.
Until last winter. A fire had severely razed the site. I felt too sad to report this tragic turn of events. But recently my friend drove out to see me and took the northern route. My phone rang, “It’s gone,” he said. “A fire. Still I wonder who the guy was who built a Cajun restaurant way out here.”
I’ll be driving that same route soon. I’ll leave flowers at the site, flowers to commemorate a dream gone, someone’s hopes and aspirations up in flames. But dang, I can still picture the fire roaring in the cast iron wood-stove in the corner, shrimp and catfish sizzling on the grill, my friend pulling nozzles and filling beer mugs, his wife carrying heaping plates of jambalaya to the customers sitting at trestle tables in their mukluks and Carhartts, snowmobiles clustered outside the door, zydeco on the jukebox; in short, a community center where neighbors meet, wild game is bartered for firewood, deals are made, disputes are settled and young folks fall in love. Let the good times roll.
Sondra Ashton
sondrajean@mtintouch.net
Havre Daily News: Home Again
November 12, 2009
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A Two Pencil Day
Can't you smell the pine and graphite? Mmmm.
A Two Pencil Day
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This is a two pencil day. It is a good omen, a sign of things to come.
I love finding things. It can be a penny on the sidewalk or a shiny rock. When I spot the treasure, something inside me jumps up and down with joy. “See a penny, pick it up. All the day you’ll have good luck.” I don’t count misplaced items which I later find hiding under my shoes on the shelf or beneath the laundry. I am talking about the unexpected find, even real treasure, the hundred dollar bill fluttering along the street. Okay, so I have never actually found so much as a twenty dollar bill except dripping in the wash and that doesn’t count.
I am walking back from the post office, when right there at my feet, lies a bright pumpkin-yellow, unused, unsharpened #2 pencil, like a flower waiting to be plucked. I pick up the pencil and examine it. Not a nick, a defect, or a bite mark. The eraser is clean and unused. I drop the pencil into my mail bag. A half block further along the street I spot another lovely yellow pencil. A bouquet! I pick it up. Plunk, in the bag. I briefly contemplate finding the owner. I imagine a young student, racing to grade school, back-pack pocket unzipped and flopping, pencils flipping out behind him and landing in the street—uh--the former owner. Finders keepers.
I am not a mean person. I am neither malicious nor penurious. I would be delighted to replace your pencils. I would replace your two pencils with ten pencils. Or even twenty. From where I now sit I see a clay pot jammed full of pencils and a pencil sharpener with a pencil sticking out, which I must have been in the process of sharpening when interrupted. I have pencils in jars, scattered about on three desks, stacked in multiple desk drawers, and squeezed into various notebooks marking place.
I finish sharpening the pencil stub poking out of the sharpener. I grind my two brand new pencils to a sharp point. Ahh. I breathe deeply. I smell the pine wood shavings rimmed with the hint of yellow, the graphite. I scritch scritch the point across a blank paper and listen to the sound. I balance the pencil between my thumb and two fingers. When pencil point meets paper, magic happens.
For pure textural pleasure, I write or draw on the inside of a flattened out brown paper bag. I listen to the pencil abrade the brown paper. It is a different sound than a pencil maneuvering smoothly along a yellow legal pad or a white lined school tablet. When I was in high school I wrote all my rough drafts on paper bags, saving the costly paper for the final versions.
My own favorite tablet, ever since first grade, is a Big Chief, but I cannot find them anymore. I think they might have been deemed politically incorrect. So I look for pads of newsprint, the next best thing, and insert the pages like filler in my last remaining Big Chief cover.
Today I have sixty or seventy tablets of various sizes, colors, textures, weights, and densities. They accumulate. I take a trip and forget to pack a tablet. Or I only pack one and while I am in the store buying oranges or a candy bar, I happen to walk down the paper/pencil/pen aisle. One tablet or another will catch my eye and next thing you know I am at the check-out justifying my purchase. I just might need another one on this momentous trip. All trips are momentous. Most of my tablets are slightly used. I journal, record, list, draw, scribble, write bad poetry but containing the one brilliant line. When the trip is over, the tablet is tossed on one pile or another. Months later I pick it up and smile at memories hidden between the words that never made it to the written page.
Two pumpkin-yellow pencils, sharpened and ready, rest on my desk, next to the stack of paper, golden harbingers of stories to come.
Sondra Ashton
sondrajean@mtintouch.net
Havre Daily News: Home Again
November 5, 2009
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
A Two Pencil Day
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________
This is a two pencil day. It is a good omen, a sign of things to come.
I love finding things. It can be a penny on the sidewalk or a shiny rock. When I spot the treasure, something inside me jumps up and down with joy. “See a penny, pick it up. All the day you’ll have good luck.” I don’t count misplaced items which I later find hiding under my shoes on the shelf or beneath the laundry. I am talking about the unexpected find, even real treasure, the hundred dollar bill fluttering along the street. Okay, so I have never actually found so much as a twenty dollar bill except dripping in the wash and that doesn’t count.
I am walking back from the post office, when right there at my feet, lies a bright pumpkin-yellow, unused, unsharpened #2 pencil, like a flower waiting to be plucked. I pick up the pencil and examine it. Not a nick, a defect, or a bite mark. The eraser is clean and unused. I drop the pencil into my mail bag. A half block further along the street I spot another lovely yellow pencil. A bouquet! I pick it up. Plunk, in the bag. I briefly contemplate finding the owner. I imagine a young student, racing to grade school, back-pack pocket unzipped and flopping, pencils flipping out behind him and landing in the street—uh--the former owner. Finders keepers.
I am not a mean person. I am neither malicious nor penurious. I would be delighted to replace your pencils. I would replace your two pencils with ten pencils. Or even twenty. From where I now sit I see a clay pot jammed full of pencils and a pencil sharpener with a pencil sticking out, which I must have been in the process of sharpening when interrupted. I have pencils in jars, scattered about on three desks, stacked in multiple desk drawers, and squeezed into various notebooks marking place.
I finish sharpening the pencil stub poking out of the sharpener. I grind my two brand new pencils to a sharp point. Ahh. I breathe deeply. I smell the pine wood shavings rimmed with the hint of yellow, the graphite. I scritch scritch the point across a blank paper and listen to the sound. I balance the pencil between my thumb and two fingers. When pencil point meets paper, magic happens.
For pure textural pleasure, I write or draw on the inside of a flattened out brown paper bag. I listen to the pencil abrade the brown paper. It is a different sound than a pencil maneuvering smoothly along a yellow legal pad or a white lined school tablet. When I was in high school I wrote all my rough drafts on paper bags, saving the costly paper for the final versions.
My own favorite tablet, ever since first grade, is a Big Chief, but I cannot find them anymore. I think they might have been deemed politically incorrect. So I look for pads of newsprint, the next best thing, and insert the pages like filler in my last remaining Big Chief cover.
Today I have sixty or seventy tablets of various sizes, colors, textures, weights, and densities. They accumulate. I take a trip and forget to pack a tablet. Or I only pack one and while I am in the store buying oranges or a candy bar, I happen to walk down the paper/pencil/pen aisle. One tablet or another will catch my eye and next thing you know I am at the check-out justifying my purchase. I just might need another one on this momentous trip. All trips are momentous. Most of my tablets are slightly used. I journal, record, list, draw, scribble, write bad poetry but containing the one brilliant line. When the trip is over, the tablet is tossed on one pile or another. Months later I pick it up and smile at memories hidden between the words that never made it to the written page.
Two pumpkin-yellow pencils, sharpened and ready, rest on my desk, next to the stack of paper, golden harbingers of stories to come.
Sondra Ashton
sondrajean@mtintouch.net
Havre Daily News: Home Again
November 5, 2009
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