Well, unless you were a kid in the 1950’s in the United States, you probably don’t recognize either the frog or the quote. In a very popular(since there were very few) children’s television show called “Andy’s Gang” the frog appeared after Andy said, “plunk your magic twanger froggy.” Then this frog popped up from a wooden stand and said, “hiya kids, hiya, hiya.” The frog was a complete mischief maker, always interfering with the talks other guests were trying to deliver to the kids.

What on earth does that have to do with “cookie people,” those who sustained, comforted and encouraged me in my life? It connects through Ellen Schwartz, a sophomore when I was a very lonely freshman in college. She kept a plush stuffed frog on her bed, and when I first saw it I said,”plunk your magic twanger, froggy” and she said, “hiya kids,hiya, hiya.” It turns out they watched the same kids show in Cleveland, Ohio that I saw in Portland, Oregon.

She listened to me a great deal that first year, about my roommate, about the challenge of my classes, about boys, and about homesickness. At the end of that year, she invited me to join with three other sophomores in moving “off campus,” to the house I described a few weeks ago. She remained a good friend throughout my college years. After graduation she married a wonderful man and moved to Washington Heights in New York City where I was able to visit a number of times.

I lost touch with her after I moved back to Oregon and only learned of her death, in a tragic fall, when I read it in our alumnae bulletin. I grieved then for her life cut short. She provided a lifeline to me when I needed it most. And she did it simply by listening.

As a junior in high school, I needed recommendations for college. I had a very incompetent counselor assigned to me whose job it was to write these recommendations. She had been my Latin teacher, and I had once observed her getting up on the desk and doing a mock can-can to a declension of Latin adjectives. Such was our awe of authority, that it occurred to no one to do anything but gawk.

Anyway, she was the one to ask for reference letters. She told me that she would only write one letter and I could choose between Oregon State University and the University of Oregon. I didn’t want to go to either college, so she told me she wouldn’t help me. (Maybe I had done a major eye roll at her grammar demonstration. Maybe she was an alcoholic and didn’t like to work.)

To my great relief, Mrs. Bassett, the vice principal, asked me how my applications were going. When I told her my predicament, she promised she would personally write whatever recommendations I needed. In a time when each letter or form had to be individually filled out, this was a gift of her time. Fortunately, in those days, we only applied to three colleges: a safety, a reach and a real reach. Her letter helped get me admitted to my real reach.

Later, she overstepped her helpfulness by asking a senior to invite me to the junior-senior prom since she knew I wasn’t going. When he did, I politely declined, to his great relief I imagine. But I am grateful that she reached out to me both with helpful aid and with unwanted help. I don’t know what she did about that counselor!

I had been buying my own clothes since the sixth grade and I was a late bloomer, so I still shopped in the girls’ department. Therefore, I went off to high school still dressed as a much younger girl. Fortunately, a new friend, Laurie, came to my rescue. She politely told me that I should not be dressing like a child now that I was in high school. Our high school was in downtown Portland, so after school she took me to THE store, Charles F. Berg and introduced me to the junior department.

I was overwhelmed by the choices confronting me in this new clothing arena. Plus, I had very limited resources. She said that I should just buy one item today and then, as I earned more money, I could add to my wardrobe. She had a sweater very similar to the one pictured above(now listed as “vintage” on Ebay) and I bought one nearly identical to hers.

I didn’t have any reliable adults in my high school years. I was no longer in Camp Fire Girls, and there were no new neighbors in my very isolated neighborhood. Laurie served as an advisor and confidante, even though she was my same age. At her encouragement, I went to football games and even to after game dances, though I never danced. Though she moved away after sophomore year, I depended on her to make the transition from kid to teenager. Thank goodness she did a clothing intervention, allowing me to look as if I belonged in high school. She saved me from being the “weird” girl, and I am very grateful.

Mrs. Wade led my Camp Fire Girls group for most of the six years I was a Camp Fire Girl. She loved to bake and she loved to teach us how to bake. I attribute my love for and skill at baking to those weekly afternoons in her spacious kitchen.

One of her first lessons involved tunnels in muffins. Just as the above image states clearly, tunnels=bad muffin. Our work was to make muffins until we got the hang of how to neither undermix nor overmix the batter. The main temptation was to overmix and Mrs. Wade showed us the tunnels that created. The best moment for me in her kitchen was the muffin I made that she cut open for all to inspect. NO TUNNELS!

It takes real skill to teach children how to do something right without any blame or shame. Children aren’t helped by blanket praise for everything they do. Nor are they helped by having every error pointed out to them. Instead, they learn best, as I did from Mrs. Wade, by learning from their mistakes. She didn’t stop with criticizing tunnels; she explained how to prevent them from occurring. Then, from repeated tries, I learned just how much to mix the batter. It has allowed me to take my baking errors in stride and figure out what went wrong so I can correct it. Sometimes, as recently, looking at my brick like bread dough, it is as simple as leaving out the yeast. At least, there wouldn’t have been any tunnels!

I am taking a break today to recognize the 4th of July, celebrated in the United States. That day, a general Congress declared independence from England. However, as any teenager can attest, a declaration of independence is not the same as actual independence. The Revolutionary War continued until 1781, with many setbacks  and great uncertainty as to who would prevail.

Three of my forebears(as one of my daughters once said, “I know the three bears, but who are the four bears?”) fought in the Revolutionary War on the side of the colonists. Daniel Whitney of Connecticut, Jeremiah Carpenter of New York and Oliver Stewart of Massachusetts all took up arms against the British.

They were farmers, not soldiers, and they fought with ragtag outfits and varied weapons against the greatest empire of the world at the time. It is surprising that they triumphed, a surprise I think they would have shared with their neighbors and families. I imagine them coming back to their apple orchards, crops and livestock after they were done fighting. Nothing much would have changed in their lives. Individually they wouldn’t have had much to show for their service.

Still, they worked together for a common good, one that seemed far out of reach, an independent nation, free of external control. I hope this July 4th that Americans can once again put aside their individual ideas of exactly how this country should be and join in a common vision. This time as a place which  values freedom of the press, holds the office of President in high esteem, respects the checks and balances that the authors of the Constitution designed after the War was over, and knows that together is the only way we will survive as a nation. Daniel, Jeremiah and Oliver would say “amen.”

When we moved to the new neighborhood when I was almost 8, I lost all of the cookie people who had been so supportive for the previous five years. Our new house was very isolated, with forest on one side and a highway and a road on two other sides. Fortunately, Mrs. Bragg lived next door and promptly introduced herself to us. She was older than my mother, already had grandchildren, and she really loved kids.

This sign is just one I found on line. Mrs. Bragg really didn’t have such a sign in her yard. But she happily let me walk across her yard on my walk to school. Sometimes she would wave, sometimes not. I don’t think I was in her house itself more than a handful of times. But she had a warm heart and I knew she was a stone’s throw away.

She died the summer I turned 11. I was heartbroken to a depth I didn’t understand at the time, nor did my family grasp my loss. I now realize that she was the only neighbor, and I had come to trust that neighbors were kind figures. Sadly, her husband remarried in a couple of years. His new wife forbid me to walk across the yard, claiming I was making a path. Instead, I had to walk up a flight of stairs, go behind their house, and go down another flight of stairs to reach the road. I finally had a neighbor who was anything but kind and I once again truly missed Mrs. Bragg.(I called her the REAL Mrs. Bragg, unlike the second one!)

Rusty was the mother of my good friend Skipper. They had other names, but they were too formal, so everyone called them Rusty and Skipper. I didn’t call her Mrs. anybody, just Rusty. The photo above was taken when she was in her 80’s, but perhaps the hard-boiled no nonsense personality she had when I was a kid comes through in the photo.

Rusty had been in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II, and she was the most feisty of all our neighbors. I loved her and loved spending the night at Skipper’s house. Skipper was afraid of the boogieman and before he and I went to sleep, Rusty would look under the bed and assure us that the boogieman was gone. This was my first experience with a parent taking night fears seriously, and I felt very safe at their house.

I also owe Rusty a debt of gratitude for my being a nonsmoker. I loved watching her smoke and told her I wanted to try it. So she handed me a cigarette, and my 6 year old self took a very deep breath in. I promptly threw up. Better aversion therapy could not have been designed, and I was forever cured of the mystique of smoking.

So here’s to Rusty who showed me, even in the very domesticated 1950’s, that women could be both tough and caring. It was a terrific lesson for one little girl.

I was 3 when we moved next door to Don and Grace Nelson. I introduced myself to Grace by standing on the border of our properties, hands on hips and declaring, “Keep off our properly!” That same feisty take no prisoners attitude is reflected in this photo of me at 4 aiming my cap gun at any intruders. (And no, playing with toy guns had no negative effect on me. Neither did smoking candy cigarettes. I neither open carry a gun nor do I smoke.)

Grace was a Godsend to me from ages 3 to 8 when we moved away. I wrote earlier about the box of Ritz Crackers she stored on its side in a low drawer so I could help myself to them. I lived in a “snack-free” house, and having access to those crackers was a real treat.

What I can know now is that Grace always welcomed me into her house whenever I walked over. That welcoming smile touched a deep place in me, though I wouldn’t have reflected on it when I was a small child. Only in retrospect can I identify Grace as a key “cookie person” providing attention and love on a regular basis to a little girl who needed and appreciated both.

Grace also introduced me to sewing on a sewing machine. Her patience was epic, and she sewed doll clothes for me as I “helped” her sew. I have sewn throughout my adult life, and I owe Grace a debt of gratitude for starting me out on my craft.

Grace disappeared from my life when we moved. Again, I thought it had to do with me and felt quite abandoned. When I located her 20 years ago, she told me she had wanted to keep in contact, but my parents didn’t allow it. Knowing she hadn’t deserted me healed a spot I had carried for a long time. Thanks for your persevering love, Grace.

I have mentioned Mrs. Dully earlier in my writings, as she is the woman who owned the big radio I thought might be a television. She was my Estonian babysitter and took care of me from the ages of 3 to 5 1/2 when my parents went out.

My memories of her are all visceral. She was very squishy and felt wonderful when she hugged me. She always smelled like roses, which I assume now came from wearing rose water as a perfume. When I smell roses now, I am transported back to a time of safety and affection.

My favorite place to be was on her lap in our rocking chair. I don’t think I ever told her that my life was difficult, but she just seemed to know it. She provided a consistent source of loving attention at a time when I felt quite emotionally alone. Of course, I didn’t know that I was emotionally alone. I just knew that some deep place in me responded to her rose smelling, squishy feeling body when she was rocking me.

She disappeared from my life very suddenly, with an explanation that put the blame on me. In retrospect, I know that I had done nothing to keep her away. I don’t know what she might have seen or what she might have heard in our home. At any rate, I never saw her again. As an adult, I found her grave and set flowers on it on Mother’s Day, thanking her for the selfless mothering she had given me when I so needed it.