It’s funny the admonitions from childhood that still occasionally echo in my mind. This one came to me in my morning shower. I grew up in a household of six, and was I frequently either being warned about using all the hot water or I was running around in a towel screaming “who used all the hot water?” So now in a household of two frugal adults who always have enough hot water I still watch my usage.

I am the same way about overhead lights. I still hear my dad’s “do we own the electric company?” when lights are on in unoccupied rooms. Forget the logic about LED bulbs lasting forever with little electricity, I run around turning them off. Of course, Charlie does the same before he hears me yelp from downstairs “I am down here!”

Just wondering if others of you still hear old, no longer useful, warnings in the background of your mind.

A few days ago I looked up from my research at the sound of machinery. Looking out, I was intrigued to watch the town’s public works men picking up leaves from the curb. Years ago they would have been burned in each yard, but air pollution concerns changed things. Our town, with its thousands of trees, collects them all, composts them at the dump, and uses them for mulch.

This was the first time I really studied the process. A couple of men used blowers to get stray leaves into the main pile. Then a vacuum tube sucked them into the truck. When I saw this tube bobbing and weaving I was reminded of an elephant’s trunk. It turns out it was being directed by a young man with a remote control device looking suspiciously like a video game joystick. While the job was getting done, I suspect he was imagining evil invaders, not mere leaves, being sucked up by his skillful hands!

I have often written about my late sister Patsy. However, this Thanksgiving I am remembering her late husband Robert. He of the marvelous mashed potatoes. I was trying and failing to explain to Charlie the feat of Robert’s dish. I never watched him do his magic. My mother would hand over the cooked potatoes, the Sunbeam stand mixer, the milk and the butter and leave him alone. I have never made them taste as good.

He was a lovely man, a perfect partner for my sister. He loved to cook and Patsy didn’t. Beyond that,though, his gentle spirit was a great salve to the tensions that could arise on holidays. Alcohol flowed freely at these gatherings, but he remained sober and peaceful.

We live alcohol free now, but I raise a sparkling apple cider toast to Robert today, remembering those melt on the tongue potatoes.

Tomorrow is American Thanksgiving Day, a chance to get together, eat and argue. Political discussions forbidden here this year. We are left with recipe wrangling. Since I am in charge, my opinions rule. Still it is fun to hear opposing ideas of the “right food” for the holiday.

Do you prefer homemade cranberry sauce(no question) or the jellied one in a can which emerges with the lines ringing it?

Should the turkey be stuffed(of course)or left unstuffed. If stuffed, with herb seasoned bread crumbs from Pepperidge Farms(no doubt) or cornbread or oysters?

Should there be petite peas(why ask) or broccoli or French green bean casserole?

Should the potatoes be mashed(how else) or substituted with rice?

Should the pumpkin pie be made from Libby’s canned pumpkin( the only source for the RIGHT recipe) or dolled up with completely unnecessary although Instagram ready extras?

Does it matter that I am alone in loving mincemeat pie? Absolutely not, one coming right up.

Happy Thanksgiving to all dissenting opinion holders!

I am extremely grateful for the collection of photographs my brother had digitized after my mother died. In the above picture, for example, I can see my grandmother(E.G.D.) with her sisters and parents. Her father was the younger brother of the Aunt Lucy I am currently researching. These photos and those like them were taken to preserve a time and place and were quite intentional.

My discomfort comes from a phrase I often hear that “we are doing this trip or this activity to make memories.” The emphasis is placed on the future enjoyment of looking back rather than on the sheer pleasure of the day. We don’t have to go out of our way to “make memories.” We might snap a photo, but we don’t focus on the recording but on the fun. Memories form on their own without the need to be curated.

So much of contemporary social media seems staged like that. Places are visited to take “selfies,” not to be seen. Meals are posted on Instagram to show how wonderful they look. Who knows what they taste like? The image matters , not the experience.

Maybe this is just me being a curmudgeon. Still I remember back in 1970 when a dear friend complained about the newly current word “lifestyle.” “Whatever happened to living a life, she asked. When did we have to think of ourselves as having a style?” I feel the same discomfort about “making memories.”

I had intended to write about my experience as a child of the death of a tree topper on the neighbor’s towering Douglas Fir. We lived surrounded by these giants and, for reasons unknown to me then or now, people regularly brought in men to cut off the tops. There was no equipment, just one man with a chain saw and spiked boots. It looked dangerous and it was. When the neighbor was taking down his tree last week I reassured myself that this time it was a safe operation.

This morning I read the above article in my childhood newspaper. It reported: “They put up a bunch of pulleys and they had an excavator out there to keep the tree from smashing on the ground so that they could save all the branches,” said friend Abby Zumwalt, “I mean, everything was set up as it should be, and it was just kind of a freak accident that the tree like started twisting and just came at her.” The woman survived but with massive injuries to her leg.

It will come as no surprise that the most dangerous job in the United States is log working. I was right to be nervous last week.

In high winds last week a major limb of the neighbor’s tree broke off, grazing another’s garage. (If you look carefully you can see the stub in the middle left) Wisely afraid that another limb would likely hit one of three houses, the neighbors hired a tree service to take the tree down. It is always sad to lose a very old tree which has come to be like an old friend. But I guess trees too have a life span, and this one had reached the end.

Even the cherry picker bucket couldn’t reach high enough, so the man used spikes to climb still higher. Because the limbs were so large they were lowered down on a complicated set of ropes he put in place. It took all day and a crew on the ground to remove the tree, put small branches through a chipper, forklift big sections to a truck and grind the stump. I know it was an expensive, if necessary, process.

The birds and squirrels are scoping out new houses. Fortunately many are available and I expect an abundant number of babies in the spring. Maybe they, like us, need to be shaken out of complacency now and then!(Thoughtful minds might make the connection with living in the United States at the moment.)
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In our sixties we constantly received offers for free dinners. Sometimes they were to listen to condominium sales pitches. Sometimes for time shares. Sometimes to discuss “wealth management”(proving they didn’t know much about us!) Eventually those offers dried up replaced with offers for free hearing tests.

Now that we are well into our seventies the latest postcard(no fancy brochures any more)we found this in the mail this week. Apparently they have reduced their incentive for this one. It’s down to lunch and a quick sales pitch for cremation. Even the lunch looks minimal, perhaps just a cup of soup.

I am struggling to imagine someone thinking up this promotion. I would prefer not to munch or sip away while we discuss cremating the same body I am fortifying with the free meal.

I was reminded of the old saying from my college years “there is no such thing as a free lunch!”

In the foreground is what is left of a ten foot tall branching sunflower which first emerged as a volunteer in June. Since then it has been visited by a series of creatures. In the beginning it attracted the interest of goldfinches, but they soon left. Then hundreds of bees feasted on the nectar throughout the ensuing weeks. As the flowers dried out they became the food source for downy woodpeckers, hovering carefully as they ate. Eventually the squirrels showed up. Some clambered up the sturdy main stalk, chewed off the flowers, took them to ground and devoured them. With little left of the largest blooms at the top the squirrels and woodpeckers have left leaving what remains to the bees and butterflies.

As you can see in the rest of the photo the trees are just starting to lose their color. The summer has been unusually dry so the change is coming sooner. The weather has been lovely, temperate and no humidity. Just right for Charlie’s late summer tasks of painting and repair of the deck and fences.

As for me, this time of year is a feast for the eyes! Time in the porch swing trying to just savor the season. Trying to stay out of politics. Occasionally succeeding.

On our walk today on the grounds of the local college, Charlie and I came across two benches like the one pictured above. Examining it close up, we could see that it has USB ports on the end, powered by the solar panels with electricity stored in the attached battery.

It seems an ideal amenity for both students and neighbors. An adjacent horseshoe pit, barbecue pit and picnic table allows people to play, eat, and charge their phones. We passed a neighbor who said he loves the idea but keeps forgetting to bring along his charging cable. For those of us who think we must always be doing something, we can now say that we aren’t just resting. We are being productive!

Thanks Goodwin College.