Miss Mary Moments

  Cooking and baking was a life-long occupation for Miss Mary. If not originally an obligation, it soon enough became a sort of hobby. I remember Mom telling me that when she was first married, she didn't know how to cook a thing. Toast was dependable. “We had bologna sandwiches every day,” she said. I believe Dad told her nicely – as newly married people still do – that a little more variety would be welcome. And so she began to try new things. An eventual success and some perfectly-timed praise, set the ball rolling on a lifetime of good food. What wonders a casual comment can cause. I forget what she said she first made that met with a smile - it was not bologna, at least – and I believe she called either a friend or family member for advice, but it didn't go unnoticed. My paternal grandmother was an excellent cook and I'm sure Dad missed the varied meals. By the time I was born, four years later, she had cookbooks at the ready and I particularly remembe...

  Mom never had expensive hobbies. She was a voracious reader and counted the library as one of societies greatest gifts. We regularly visited two local libraries but occasionally visited even more. To be able to read a book without paying for it was a treat to be savored and one we seldom passed up. For who is too busy to read? Mom had a broad range of knowledge and I credit that to her appetite for books. She did not care for the sciences but she still had a general knowledge and could hold her own in a conversation on most any subject. That’s not to say it wouldn’t bore her but she was never isolated by knowing nothing of a subject. When we lived in Miamisburg she had my grandfather build her bookcases and it didn’t take her long to fill them. They both held a spot in our living room and were a focal point of her life. When we moved to Pinehaven we found three built-in bookcases, floor-to-ceiling designs – and they might have been one of the reasons we bought th...

  We had a raft of pets – or should I say I did – but only one took both Mom and Dad’s heart. Our schnauzer, Ginger, was actually my brothers but a divorce sent her our way and we willingly and quickly assented. She had spent many days and nights with us as it was so full-time was just an extension of what we were already used to. I remember her being delegated to my bedroom that first night we had her. I placed a basket in one corner of the floor and climbed into my bunk bed (top bunk). While I tried to go to sleep, Ginger had other ideas. I’d hear her get out of her basket and her toenails clip-cloppping across the bare wooden floor. I’d get up, put her back in her basket and tell her to “stay there”. But as soon as I got back into bed she’d be up and exploring the room. Mostly she walked to the closed door and stood there, hoping to be let out. Eventually that’s exactly what Dad did. Ginger jumped up onto Dad’s fold-out sofa, curled up beside him, and blissfully slep...

  Dad spent his entire working life in the grocery business. Just prior to being married he worked for a short while at a Dayton tool company (WWII was just ending). He was deferred from the draft due to part of one lung being removed when he was a child. That serious case of pneumonia moved him too close to death for comfort but I suppose it removed him from further risk during the war. He carried a curved scar on his back throughout his life as a reminder. In the 1950’s he contracted rheumatoid arthritis and he blamed the Salk polio vaccine. I remember going one evening back to my school (Mark Twain Elementary School in Miamisburg) with my Mom and Dad and drinking a small cup of the vaccine in the gymnasium. It was not long after that Dad began to develop pain in his joints and after a few trips to the doctor it was determined that he had the early stages of arthritis. His doctor was never wholly convinced that the vaccine triggered the arthritis but Dad felt the one ...

  Dad’s life as a grocer meant Mom had some involvement, too. Even as a young child, I was aware that Dad worked in a grocery. Once, when I was very young, he brought home miniature boxes of various products and gave them to me to play with. I can remember the tiny boxes of cereal, printed just like the full-sized ones, and how much fun I had “playing grocer”. Andy's Market - circa 1953 There are things we all remember that are insignificant in the greater view and yet affected us greatly. Once when I was in elementary school – fifth grade it seems to me – Dad showed up after lunch with a Planter’s peanut pen. He proudly gave me the pen with Mr. Peanut on the end. How I loved that gift. I suppose it was a promotion from a salesman but I was thrilled that he gave it to me, even mores so that he delivered it personally. The grocery was within walking distance of the school and Dad knew many of the teachers and students. He was also a close friend of the principal. For a g...

  I doubt that we moved as often as most people. Mom and I Dad live in a little house on Eleventh Street in Miamisburg from soon after their marriage (1945) until 1956 when Bob was born and we moved across the street. Really. That first tiny house, all of 831 square feet of living space, wouldn’t be big enough nowadays for people to use as a storage building. It had no outbuildings but for what was once an outdoor toilet in the southwest corner of the back yard but which had been converted to storage before I was born. Luckily we had an indoor bathroom by the time of my birth but I doubt it predated me by much. My maternal grandfather was a plumber and I understand he did much of the conversion work. It was similarly small, barely bigger than the outdoor toilet, but it did have a toilet, a bathtub, a sink and running water. Even hot. Mom always told me that was an unspeakable luxury in the early years of her marriage. I never knew life without hot water and a flush...