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My favorite traditions involve food — baking Christmas cookies, summer barbecues, Thanksgiving dinner, going out with my Dad to several different stores looking for the perfect Easter ham… my belly growls just thinking about it! Now that I’m an adult and I am sharing those same memories with my children, I am starting to realize that the best part of these traditions isn’t so much the food (my tastes have changed so much since then!) but the rituals of preparing the foods with the rest of the family. I remember spending weeks of evenings and Saturdays in the kitchen preparing Christmas cookies with my mom, and then freezing them until Christmas Eve, when all our hard work would be displayed on her best crystal platters at my Aunt Bonnie’s house. I remember helping my Dad prepare wild concoctions that he would marinate meat in overnight, then get up at the crack of dawn on July 4 to begin grilling, roasting, and preparing amazing foods for his yearly 4th of July cookout — the “Billy Bash,” as our family would call it. I remember all these events in my childhood that centered around food, but the process of creating something to feed our huge family is really what it was all about!

So many family problems were handled by the women in the kitchen! This is when they would all come together — to cook — but actually, to discuss family matters and how best to handle them. I think that we call it “networking” these days! One cousin going on vacation would find a caretaker for her pet, and in return, the caretaker could barter for help painting a nursery. The care of elderly family members, pregnant family members, and newborns was worked out between daughters and cousins, and people came together in a way that doesn’t happen anymore.

Now, a lot of the older generation has passed on, and the cousins have all moved away. We don’t get together in the kitchen on holidays anymore, and the “Billy Bash” has been scaled down quite a bit. It’s sad, in a lot of ways. But I’ve been keeping the tradition alive in my own family by bringing the children into the kitchen. We bake bread, make Christmas cookies, plan cookouts, make goodies to take to elderly neighbors, and rework some of the old heirloom recipes. (Apparently, my ancestors knew nothing of cholesterol.) And while in the kitchen, we discuss school bullies, grades, plan vacations, solve social problems, tell jokes, and find solutions. Our kitchen is truly the heart of our home, and those traditions are still the best times of my life — especially now that I get to share them with my children!

Keeping tradition alive

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I’m from Clarksburg, and one of the best-known traditions there is the annual Italian Heritage Festival. I loved this festival when I was a kid, though I must say in recent years it seems to have lost some of its luster. Still, it’s a good place to run into old friends I wouldn’t see otherwise, so I try to make it down when I can.

While I was perusing the historical-photos archive at the WVU Libraries website, I came across this photo from the first-ever Italian Heritage Festival. (I don’t want to post it here, because I don’t have the rights for it, so you’ll have to click that link.)

Tell me — does the guy in the middle remind any of you of a famous West Virginian?

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“So we had Cheneys on both sides of the family,” said Cheney, “and we don’t even live in West Virginia.”
(Los Angeles Times, Blogs, Top of the Ticket: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/06/dick_cheney.html)

Do I even have to say anything about this?

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My friend and coworker Laurel called me today to let me know she was going to be a little late in getting to the office. She had found a malnourished dog walking down the middle of the road, in traffic, and being the responsible animal lover she is, she picked it up and took it to the vet. It turns out the dog is well-known at the vet’s office, and they’ve been worried about it for years because of its irresponsible owner. Laurel can’t handle a third dog, but if the owner of the poor pooch doesn’t claim it in five days (knock on wood that he doesn’t), she already has a line on an awesome home for it. Well done, Laurel.

Which brings me to my rant: What the hell is wrong with people who don’t take care of their animals? Why even get a dog if you can’t be bothered to take care of its basic needs? Why? (I know the reasons; I just don’t understand them.)

When I was growing up, I knew some people who had two hunting beagles that they kept in a little pin in the back of their yard. (And by little, I mean 3′ X 6′. For two dogs. And the floor was made of two-by-fours with space in between them so some of the poop would drop out. It was a mixed blessing, because their feet would sometimes drop out too.) These were otherwise good people, but the dog thing was crazy.

I’m reminded of this kind of stuff every day, as I have to drive by this pathetic guy on my way home from work:

Fang

How bad would that suck? I did a post about this dog, who we call Fang, a year ago on Reversing the Numbness, and he’s still in this situation 24 hours a day. A lost cause on paws. Our kids often say “poor Fang” as we drive by.

To quote my friend Josh Williams: “Chaining a sentient being to a peg for its life is just not good juju.

tswhatI’msayin.

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Spring is a nice thing here in WV … especially after one of our cold grey/brown winters. One of the first signs of spring is the robins you begin to hear chirping as the sun rises. You know spring is here (or at least just around the corner) when you wake to the sound of birds.

Every year, a mama robin seems to find her way to our front-porch light to build her nest and lay her eggs. The kids and I think it’s so cool to keep an eye on the nest for eggs, then babies. The mama usually gets so used to us that she doesn’t even fly off when we go out the door! The babies are looking really cute now, and when we’re on the front porch we hear their soft chirps.

It’s hard to get a good photo. I have to stand on a chair and hold the camera up while pointing it down into the nest. I can’t really see what I’m shooting, and that makes it tricky.

Robin eggs

Baby robins

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What looks crappier than an old, empty pool on a really crappy day? Not much. Case in point:

The Stealey Pool

That’s the Stealey Pool, which was my summer haunt all the years of my youth. That place was awesome. Pretty much every kid in Stealey (including us Stealey boys) were members, and it was always one of the nicest places to swim in all of Clarksburg. Not only did spring mean the end of school, but it also meant the beginning of swim season and our daily trips up the biggest hill in the neighborhood to our beloved pool.

I was recently in Clarksburg for my Grandmother Stealey’s funeral, unfortunately, and my brothers and I spent a couple of hours driving around our old stomping grounds. It’s getting pretty run down in places, sadly, and I understand Clarksburg in general is going through some pretty tough times right now. Our trip up to good ol’ Stealey pool was an eye-opener. There it was, lonely, tired looking, its age showing in its peeling paint, its cracking concrete deck, it’s rusty fence. Add to that a gloomy day, a shallow pool of dirty grey water at the bottom of the deep end, and not another soul in sight, and the place just looked terrible. It looked dead, almost.

Even though the town is facing tough times right now, and I doubt the pool’s budget has an extreme makeover in the cards, I’m sure that the coming of spring will turn it into a completely different place. The surrounding hills will be lush with vegetation, the pool will be filled with clean, blue water, and the cracks in the deck will be hidden by slowly tanning feet of every shape and size.

I just love how spring makes dead things come back to life.

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I know it’s really spring when Charleston’s cherry blossoms start to open up. These fragile flowers bloom only for a week or so before the delicate petals fall from the sky like the snow we were only recently wishing to never see again. It’s easy to get caught up in the hustle and bustle of everyday life and forget to stop and look for these trees to bloom each year.

Cherry Blossoms

There are a few cherry trees in Charleston, including one huge, gorgeous, weeping cherry tree at First Presbyterian Church, next door to the school where I work. As soon as February’s out of the way, I start watching that tree for little buds to start popping up and turning green. Sometimes, I think that watching for those little green signs of hope does so much to get me through the end of winter. Just when it seems like the cold, grey days will never end, the buds appear and my mental focus turns to springtime.

Weeping Cherry

Once the cherry trees bloom, I know that other flowers will follow suit. My apple tree in the back yard isn’t far behind, and then azaleas and rhododendrons, redbud trees and snowball bushes. My dreary commute is rocked by the bright pinks and purples and yellow-green saplings of springtime, and the world seems to come alive again.

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