It Must’ve Been the Arthur-itis

 

It Must’ve Been the Arthur-itis

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I never had a mom but there was a woman who birthed me and with whom I had a strained and tenuous relationship, that mom.

I was four when my Mom was committed to the State Hospital in Madison, Indiana. She never left the institution until the late 60s or early 70s when those institutions were pretty much shut down and residents parceled out into group homes, each with a shopping bag of medicines. Yeah, I’m biased.

I remember almost nothing of my early childhood except the “last straw” in which there were threats and violence. I know that my Mom had to leave home because me and my baby sister were endangered.

When I was seven, our teacher, Miss Naomi, introduced us to letter writing. I began my correspondences to my mother and her sister, my Aunt JoAnne, which correspondences I continued until the deaths of each woman.

Aunt Jo’s letters always delighted me and we became close. I dreaded finding each missive from my Mom in the mailbox because I never knew if the letter would be intelligible. She always told me she loved me. Some part of me believed her and I continued writing.

I lived in Missoula in the mid-80s when Aunt JoAnne called me that my Mom was back in Madison and that she was dying. I had a working vehicle, no memory of how I financed the trip because I had no money, and I drove non-stop through Denver, Kansas City, St. Louis, through Illinois into Indiana and on to Madison, stopping only for fuel and cat-naps at rest stops.

I was so ga-ga from driving that I had to go to the police station to get help to find the motel where I stayed with my Aunt JoAnne.

Every morning for a week I went to the hospital and spent hours with my Mom, mostly in silence, but we communicated love in depth. In the afternoons Aunt JoAnne and I walked the banks of the Ohio River and talked and ate hot dogs and ice cream cones. I had that last week with my Mom and I am forever grateful.

One morning I overheard a woman in the room across the hall, another visitor, saying these words, “It must’ve been the arthuritis.” The woman’s accent was pure hill-country and the word “arthuritis” had more syllables than I can imitate. Her words and the lilt of her soft voice have never left me.

I smiled and in my mind her phrase became my code for the unexplainable and the inexplicable. I also use the phrase as a prayer, to cover a sadness, and to make me smile.

Hurricanes, floods, fires, quakes, bridges down, airplanes crash: Must’ve been the arthuritis. Confusion, anger, messes of all kinds around the world: Must be the arthuritis. Climate change: Definitely arthuritis. When I hear the siren of the ambulance passing through on the highway: Must’ve been the arthuritis.

My three papaya trees get curly leaf and die: Must be the arthuritis. Ant invasion in my kitchen: Must be the arthuritis. When the bread doesn’t rise like I know it should: Yep, the arthuritis.

When every joint aches and walking is painful, I know it is the arthuritis. Personally, I think everyone should have a handy-dandy all-purpose catch phrase to use in those moments of frustration or anxiety or feeling hopeless. For me, I lay blame on the arthuritis and then move on to the next step, even when that step is still invisible.

Even when the leaves get chomped to smithereens on your best papaya tree and suddenly you find seven pupa of the beautiful giant pine hawk moth, yep, must’ve been . . .

Sondra Ashton

HWC: Looking out my back door

October 2, 2025

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We Made Omelet, Mixed and Magical

We Made Omelet, Mixed and Magical  

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            Bacon and eggs are common base ingredients, but we created a different kind of omelet at Char’s the other morning, a “Friend Omelet”, made of ingredients (ourselves), old friends and new.

            I had no idea whether we could pull it off. I conjured the germ of an idea shortly after I spontaneously decided to fly to Montana. My little girl needed me. She was born in ’66, you do the math, but age is meaningless to a mother. And I wanted to see her new home.

Dee’s family moved into new digs two months ago: Dee Dee, Chris, Antoinette, four dogs, a cat, three guinea pigs, innumerable and varied chickens, a yellow lizard, a horse and an assortment of unpacked boxes. Now I know why she needed her mommy.

            But I digress. When I decided to go north, I constrained myself to a strict budget. Words mean everything, pun intended: “Strict budget” sounds much more acceptable than stone broke. I would not visit all my friends this trip.  

            Dee Dee said, “When I pick you up in Billings, let’s take a quick road trip to Havre. I’ve located an old school friend I’d like to see.”

            So, I wrote my long-time good friend Jane and asked her to arrange a breakfast gathering Saturday morning. I asked her to call two Havre women who write me real letters regularly. I knew that Jane knew Lee. In a letter, Loretta had wondered if her and Lee’s husbands had worked together at one time. Dee and her friend Cathi would join us too.

            What made this breakfast rather unique is that the ingredients, we people, were all strangers in some ways. I’d never met the women who corresponded with me. Dee knew Cathi from high school but had not seen her in too many years.

            Loretta said it best. “When Jane, a stranger to me, called, I thought, this breakfast meet is way out of my comfort zone. I won’t know anyone.” But she took a deep breath and showed up despite misgivings.

            We all arrived about the same time, full of hugs and glad-to-meet-yous and so-good-to-see yous.

            Coffee appeared. The young woman who served our table was so sweet and patient. We delayed ordering because we were too busy talking, laughing. Our good food took forever to eat between questions, stories, insights, and connections.

            Here is where our story gets unique. To be good an omelet must have ingredients whose flavors blend and enhance each other, right?

            Two ingredients, Dee and her friend Cathi, whom I recognized instantly, is Lee’s daughter. Now how about that! Dee and Cathi cornered one end of the table talking as though no time had passed.

Stir in a third ingredient, Lee. Now add my friend Jane. In the mixing, I learned that my daughter’s friend, also Lee’s daughter, Cathi, had, at one time, been married to my friend Jane’s son. What a mixed omelet! Keep in mind, I had no idea they all knew each other and were family.

Now to gently fold in a generous measure of seasoning. Loretta and Lee had known one another in the past. Indeed, their husbands had worked together. They had many remember-when type stories to share.

Oops! I also must jump into this omelet pan. Turn up the heat but not too high. Blended together, with no preconceived notions, we made a great omelet.

Having lived long enough to have no shame, we hung dirty laundry on the line. Our collective stories included the good, the bad and the ugly. Every ingredient is necessary to live life with full flavor.  

We sat down as strangers, discovered connections, shared experiences and stood up as family. Magical. Bizarre and magical.

           

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

June 6, 2019

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From Fish to Furniture--The Three Day Rule

From Fish to Furniture--The Three Day Rule

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I try to be cognizant of the three day rule when I am a guest, whether I'm visiting with friends or family. After three days, fish or guest, one stinks. One notices the speculative eyeball, "When do you think she'll leave?"

There is a slight difference when one is a paying guest, such as I am at the hotel in Hot Springs where I spend hours each day soaking in steaming pools, sleeping, reading, and healing.  Just this morning when I was warming a chair in front of the fireplace, a young man who works here, Willy, I believe his name is, asked, "You still here?"

The day I arrived I committed to three days. One or two would not be enough so surely three would be perfect. However, the second day I found myself thinking about leaving and a mild state of panic set in. Not real panic but pseudo-panic, which feels the same. So I added another day. Then I asked for yet another day, or maybe two--no, let me see the calendar. So will my room be available for another week? Aw, let's just run my stay through a full two weeks. 

So the first three days I am indeed a guest, rather pampered with my needs catered to by the cheerful staff.

Day four segues into an interesting blend of being a guest and being family.  Definitely, I am family the rest of the first week.  I help myself to coffee.  I know where the pot sits on the burner beneath the coffee maker. When I need fresh towels, I know which staff is doing house-keeping this day. Silverware is wrapped comfy in a roomy napkin in the basket on the table around the corner.  I helped a guest get some this morning at breakfast.

Now and then, someone checks to see if I need anything. But mostly we have short conversations. They know my name. I am getting to know them.

And like with any blended family, tasks are shared. The woman taking reservations might also be waiting tables in the dining room, two phones stuffed inside her apron pockets. The maintenance man doubles as the breakfast chef. Job descriptions at the hotel must be either a nightmare of paperwork or everyone simply signs up to do whatever task needs doing. See what I mean--family.

After the first week I feel like furniture, quite comfortable perched in my corner, ignored by everyone. Any day now I expect to be dusted as 'house-keeping' makes the rounds, especially if I've already been to the hot pool and am sitting immobile in my favorite chair before the fire, seemingly comatose but actually in perfect imitation of a Zen meditative state.

I will leave eventually, honestly, I will. Saturday I will be on my way to Washington, happy to have use of my phone once more. Oh, dear, the maintenance man is coming my way with two light bulbs and a lampshade. Oh, dear, do you suppose . . .

            Sondra Ashton

            HDN: Looking out my back door

            October 17, 2013

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The Seed Show, Nostalgia and Home-Made Pie

The Seed Show, Nostalgia and Home-Made Pie
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Only a few days before the 63rd Montana Seed Show and a nearly palpable excitement shimmers in the Harlem air. It’s contagious. As I make my rounds in town, to the post office to pick up my mail, then to city hall to pay my water bill and on around the corner to Albertson’s for buttermilk because I have a yen for biscuits in the morning and across the street to the Senior’s Center to say hello to Katie and whoever is hanging around, I hear, over and over, “See you at the Seed Show!”

Nobody asks, “Are you going to the Seed Show?” It is understood that unless one is stuck in the hospital or off vacationing in the Bahamas, this weekend one will take in the Seed Show. The Montana Seed Show is an essential ingredient in the glue that holds Harlem together; a bonding element that makes Harlem our home.

My Uncle Jim was one of the founders of the Seed Show. He was the family member who encouraged my Dad to transplant us from southern Indiana, from a small farm near the Ohio River to a much larger farm on the much smaller Milk River. I was in the seventh grade when I went to the Civic Center with my Dad for my first Seed Show.

The Civic Center, an imposing two-story building complete with a basement, occupied the block where the bank now sits. It housed the city office, the police station and jail, the telephone office, the library and a gymnasium with a balcony above and a stage to one side. This venerable building was the heart of our community. The school, city government, and business, professional and civic groups used the Civic Center. Our Harlem Wildcats played basketball there. We high school students strung the gym with crepe paper streamers for the school carnival. Every year old time fiddlers from all around took to the stage, tapped their feet and plied their bows to ancient melodies. And until the building burned to the ground in January of 1968, it was the home of the Montana Seed Show.

I close my eyes and memory takes over. I walk through the doors of the auditorium. Rows of planks across sawhorses, trays of seed potatoes, sugar beets, wheat, oats, and barley. Sheaves of baled hay or gently tied bunches of loose hay, and trays of stinky (to my nose) silage. Colorful ribbons designate rank of achievement. In my mind, I walk beside Dad, up and down each row and inspect every agricultural offering. None hold the least interest to me. I poke at mounds of sheep’s wool with their distinctive odor and feel of lanolin. I cast a cursory glance at the commercial displays ringing the perimeter of the gym. I linger over the pie display. I imagine the anticipation as the few chosen women assemble ingredients for the bake-off under the watchful eyes of the judges.

Soon Dad is deep in conversation with other Valley farmers or perhaps with one of the town merchants. I slip away to find school mates, shed my heavy winter coat and head scarf and toss them in a pile on the bleachers. Arm-in-arm, we girls walk ‘round and ‘round the gym. I imagine that a certain boy might look at me with a special twinkle in his eye, because I certainly am looking at him. I would be mortified if that boy spoke to me. That wasn’t done. How times have changed.

Most of the farmers and ranchers wore heavy plaid wool coats and hats with ear flaps. My Dad’s coat was red and black. Town men wore dressier coats, longer and most often of a solid color. All the men sported black rubber buckled galoshes, an item of dress necessary for both farmyard and Harlem’s dirt streets. Women wore either cotton house dresses or rayon “Sunday” dresses with hats and gloves and handbag. If she were a farm wife (an excruciatingly apt term), a woman might wear humiliating black galoshes. Town women wore clear plastic overshoes that fastened with a snap on a flap, designed to fit over high heels. I may have been only twelve, but I noticed the difference.

Though there is no sugar beet industry in our area and few potato growers, the Seed Show still stresses the value of “good seed, good fellowship and good neighbors”*. Today’s Seed Show, now located at Harlem High School, has changed vastly. Tables have replaced planks over sawhorses. A canvas covering protects the finish of the gym floor. In addition to the traditional baked goods, the pies and breads, this year the committee has added cup cakes. An entire area is devoted to needlework and quilts. The school’s old gym houses an art gallery with an auction Friday night. Out in the industrial arts building one can ooh and ah over restored tractors and cars of yesteryear. Wool displays now include demonstrations of carding and spinning. Add woodworking, the health fair, the educational and commercial exhibits, and one of my favorites, the chili cook-off.

Today men are not excluded from baking or women from wood working. Today you cannot distinguish farmer from townsperson by dress. The black overshoes disappeared long ago. One thing I must mention is the home-made pies served in the cafeteria. In my well-fed opinion, Harlem ought to be designated the pie capital of the world. See you at the Seed Show.

*p.524 Thunderstorms and Tumbleweeds

Sondra Ashton
HDN: Looking out my back door
March 8, 2012
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Missoula Children’s Theatre Comes to Harlem

Missoula Children’s Theatre Comes to Harlem

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Saturday night, right here in my own home town of Harlem , I attended a live theatre production. Along with two hundred excited parents, family members and friends, I watched thirty children, cast in a variety of roles, cavort across the stage in “Pinocchio”.

But for me the fun began the previous Sunday afternoon when Dan Watson and Lydia Jane Graeff, a team of directors from the Missoula Children’s Theatre, drove their little red truck into my driveway, and came inside to meet me and to see what was to be their home for the following week. I showed them to their rooms so they could unpack and take a few moments to relax before their work began.

Missoula Children’s Theatre has been around for forty years. If co-founder Jim Caron, out of a job and on his way to Oregon , had not broken down while driving his ancient VW van near Missoula , MCT might not exist. While waiting for repairs, he noticed a poster advertising auditions for the musical, “Man of La Mancha”. “Why not,” he thought, “just for fun”. He found himself cast in the play and during the run developed a friendship with Don Collins who played the lead.

After “ La Mancha ” closed, Caron and Collins formed a company to present theatre for children. Their efforts in Missoula were such a success that soon Jim and Don were receiving requests from other communities to perform for their children.

When they started they cast adults in the plays, with children only playing appropriate roles. In the winter of ’72 the company was booked to travel to Miles City for a production of “Snow White”. Jim and Don were hesitant to take seven children on that long trip over the icy roads. They took the radical step of driving to Miles City ahead of the rest of the crew, hoping they would find seven children willing to spend the week of preparation and be part of play. Four hundred fifty children showed up for auditions and the present form of Missoula Children’s Theatre was conceived.

Today hopeful directors audition to be part of Missoula Children’s Theatre. They are intensively trained and placed in teams of two which travel throughout the United States in little red trucks with the MCT logo prominent on the doors. International teams take theatre around the world. My new friends, Dan and Lydia , rookies with MCT, are touring “Pinocchio” to Montana and Wyoming communities. In their truck they carry their clothing and personal effects, the scripts, lighting, props, costumes, make-up, sets and all the equipment needed to create a stage wherever they go. Every Sunday they arrive at a new home. They cast up to sixty children and rehearse throughout the week. On Saturday they raise the set, run through a dress rehearsal, briefly rest and on Saturday evening the kids perform for the community. After the play, Dan and Lydia tear down the set and load all the equipment back into the truck. Early Sunday morning they head down the road.

For some communities MCT is the only live theatre to which their children are exposed. This is the second year that the newly organized Harlem PTO has sponsored MCT’s appearance. Last year sixteen children participated. This year thirty children signed up for the hard work of rehearsals every night after school. This is not just simple entertainment. MCT states “the primary goal, indeed the organization’s mission, is the development of life skills in children through participation in the performing arts.” I know how hard our kids worked, because I saw their directors drag through my front door chewing their hair at the end of the evening, looking like road kill. Yet each day, Dan and Lydia returned to school eager to help the kids build the next layer of competence.

Finally the big night arrived. I went to the high school to see the play performed on the same stage where we had plays when I was a student. The old gym, with its stage on one side, is the only remaining part of old Harlem High. I sat through the performance, a grin pasted across my face, delighted at the bravery of the kids. I silently cheered for each young actor and held my breath whenever the action on the stage came to a halt, evidence of lost lines. But these children did it. They pulled it off. The show was a triumph.

After the play, parents took thousands of photographs, locking in memories forever. Dan and Lydia , together with a few community members, broke down the stage and packed the entire set and all the equipment into the little red truck. We came back to my house to celebrate and over a feast of pizza, talked theatre and life (and aren’t they the same thing) until midnight. Sunday morning I waved good-by to my two new friends as they headed down the road to their next gig.

Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

April 21, 2011
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How I lost my sense of humor

How I lost my sense of humor
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My world looked gray. My bank balance hovered near empty. My refrigerator was bare. My various aches and pains would, no doubt, be revealed as a fatal disease. Winter had dug in its claws and was hanging on tenaciously. Flood waters were rising. News was grim. All over the world, the nation, the state, our town and in my house, things were falling apart. I was in a blue funk. I realized my sense of humor was missing. I felt bereft, like I had misplaced my best friend, locked it in a closet and forgotten where I put it.



To my surprise, I felt as though I had contracted a contagious malady, akin to an actual disease, more drastic than losing one’s mind, which in my opinion, is not generally a great loss. This was serious. What if I could not locate my humor? When I lose my sense of humor, people avoid me. I avoid me. Horrors! I knew I must find my humor and find it fast.



Where did I last use my humor? That’s probably where I left it. When I cannot find my car keys, after searching my bag, my pockets, my desk and the kitchen counter, eventually I open the front door and there they hang, in the lock. I did wonder if someone had sneaked in when I wasn’t looking and stolen my humor. But that’s highly unlikely.



I searched my memory. I had last seen my humor on the day I began thinking. Thinking is a dangerous act. Thinking leads me to questions. Here’s what I was thinking: Why did I ever move back to this Ice Encased Country? Why did I leave the lovely green waters of Puget Sound where the winter temperatures are mild and summer days are balmy? I missed the mossy green outdoors. I missed my distant friends and family. I felt imprisoned by winter. I no longer wanted to be where I am. Yes, I had slid into a Deadly Thinking Site. That’s where my humor had vanished. How could I find my way out?



I needed help. I called friends. We met for lunch at Deb’s Diner, right here in town. Delightful company, good food, friendly laughter. Winter, while not departed, began to loosen its grip. Back home, I opened the door to my fridge. I checked my bank balance. There was sufficiency for the needs of the day. My aches and pains retreated.



The next day at a meeting at City Hall I learned that our swimming pool had emptied over the winter. There was evidence the water might be pooled beneath our building. The surrounding sidewalks were buckling and crumbling. Not only that, we learned the State had removed vital funding for a new sewage treatment facility which the State had required us to build. Furthermore bids for much needed energy efficiency updates at City Hall and the City Shop came in way over the amount of grant money we had been awarded. The Milk River is expected to crest in two to three weeks. Homes and property are in peril. None of this is good news. I looked at my colleagues and realized we would pull together for our city. These problems were not mine alone. We would come up with the best solutions possible. Together we would muddle through. I felt good. It made me smile. This is my people. This is my home.



Later, at the Montana Seed Show I met more friends, old and new. I ate breakfast with three men from my high school days. It was as if no years had intervened, with the difference that our conversation today could be honest and intimate. Throughout the weekend I bounced from acquaintance to acquaintance. I had lunch with my cousins. By the end of the Seed Show, after the Saturday night banquet, my feet hurt, I was stuffed, and I was tired but felt fully revitalized. I now know I am where I want to be. My world is beautiful. My sense of humor is back.



At the art show, I bought an abstract painting. If laughter and joy can be painted, the artist captured it in this picture. I placed it above my computer where it will remind me, winter or summer, that my sense of humor is my most valuable possession. I will hang on tight to my humor, no matter what my day brings. You know how to hang on tight to humor? You have to let it go.



Sondra Ashton

HDN: Looking out my back door

March 17, 2011
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