Miss Mary Moments

 I remember thirty years ago as a high point. Our lives ebb and flow like the tide. But that time period was like one long sunny day, calm and pleasant, and we basked in the joy of that interlude. We had just purchased a house on two acres in the country and the promises it held were a bit overwhelming. It was all good, even the work we saw at every turn. We were all together in that first year: my mother, father, myself and our schnauzer. It wouldn't be as good again. And it had never been so good before. We didn't know the house as Pinehaven yet. In fact my mother had not yet become “Miss Mary” but the personality was surely formed many years before. The fiestiness, the biting edge was already sharpening its teeth. Hers was a good-natured snarl and we knew that her bark held a deep-throated smile. Dad was retired and at 63 was already receiving Social Security for his debilitating arthritis. A lifetime spent in the grocery business – hands in a cold locker of m...

  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...

  And so in 1956, new baby in tow, my parents closed up shop on their first house and carried their furniture and belongings across the street. The house meant a gain of just 67 square feet but it was newer, built in 1952 rather than 1928. I was on vacation with my grandparents in Bear Lake and arrived back after the move had substantially been made. I left one house and returned to another. I remember distinctly my mother buying me a 45 record called “First Born” by Tennessee Ernie Ford. She meant to put to rest any fears I might have that all my parent’s attention would now be directed to my new brother. Frankly, I was never worried about that at all. We graduated to two bedrooms but that was hardly an improvement. Both were small. There was still only one bathroom and a tiny galley-like kitchen with built-in seating pushed into a corner as almost an afterthought. We may have gained a bedroom – and who can discount the utility of that? - but we lost a dining room...

  And so in 1980 we packed up a third time and moved to Moraine. This house was the newest we would ever live in; built in 1977 it also gave us 1138 square feet to spread out in. Of course by today’s standards, even for newlyweds, that’s a walk-in closet, but we were happy. We had three bedrooms, two bathrooms, a kitchen, dining room, family and laundry room and an enclosed garage. A garage is something we never had before. The first house had nothing and when we moved across the street we gained a carport. In other words, we put a roof (somewhat) over one car. When both Bob and I drove and bought cars, a one-car carport didn’t offer much protection from the elements. We gained a deck and a fenced yard. Our schnauzer was right at home here because it was the home she was used to. The back yard with a substantial hill allowed her room to play and I could throw balls down the yard and she’d almost become airborne running to catch them. The house was covered with oliv...

  My Dad first saw Pinehaven one day when he was having a ride with Ginger. He said he had always liked the house and was surprised to see a “for sale” sign in the front yard. He came home and called the real estate agent. She said she had just placed the sign there the same day. The house, though, came with forty acres and that was something none of us were interested in. Initially the owners didn’t want to break it up. But I suppose a lack of other offers soon turned their head to the idea that something of that sort was at least possible. I walked with the owner to a spot north of the house. “I’d have to own to here,” I told him. “I wouldn’t want someone else to buy and build closer to the house than this.” He wasn’t much interested in breaking off such a small piece. In fact it was later measured to be just about two acres. The agent later told us she doubted it would happen. But soon it did. Our offer was accepted. The previous owners would keep 38 acres ...

  Our Holy Grail was Bear Lake, Michigan. In the 1930’s my grandfather began going there on fishing trips and it became a regular vacation spot for the Dayton crowd. In fact they formed a colony of sorts by the Little Bay and called it the Dayton – Bear Lake Outing Club. It was the go-to vacation spot for my grandfather and many of his friends and business associates. While I’ve seen slides of a trip to Florida, and I believe my grandparents actually owned property there, it had none of the mystique of Bear Lake and was soon enough sold and relegated to no more than a fading fond memory. My grandmother was raised by the Hinkle’s and they became my Aunt Belle and Uncle George. If there was a familial connection, I never figured it out. But my father always wondered how his mother came to live with someone other than her own mother who ended up living in nearby Columbus. It’s a genealogical mystery that would be exciting to unravel. In the end there might be an answe...