Memories of a Boy

I got to thinking about something the other day, having read in our former town paper that the Boys Harbor Camp had been sold.  It was a place put together by a man with money for underprivileged boys who lived in New York City. They'd spend the summer, or a portion of it anyway, on the eastern end of Long Island, in the country.

That pulled a memory from deep recesses of my mind. The third summer I was married, I was the mommy of a toddler girl and expecting another baby in early September. We decided to place an application with the Fresh Air Organization. This was a group who placed impoverished children from the city in homes in the country for two week periods during the summertime.  We'd been reviewed and briefly interviewed and our application had been accepted. Then we waited for the time to pick up our child.

When we were notified of time and date, we drove to Southampton to meet our little visitor. He was seven years old and his name was Raymond.  He was born to a Puerto Rican family, and his English was broken.  He was shy, and he was scared. I don't blame him!  Can you imagine being sent from your family to one you've never met, to stay in an unfamiliar place for 14 long days? And can you imagine being his Mom and doing that? It's unimaginable to me.

Raymond was fearful of the underbrush at the border of our yard. When we would play catch with him, he'd dodge the ball, and if it went into the low blueberry bushes, he wouldn't go and get it. I don't know if he was afraid of nonexistant snakes or poison ivy or bugs. Perhaps he thought they were planted gardens, I don't know. 

His table manners were not very established yet. When he ate his food, he would put his mouth on the edge of his plate, and slide the food across the plate with his fork, until it got to his mouth. I attempted to teach him a more traditional method, and he tried to accomplish it. However, when I wasn't looking directly at him, I noticed he'd slip into his more comfortable way of eating.

Our little girl seemed to love Raymond. She laughed and tried to play with him. He seemed to like her, and was gentle with her. As I remember, he had younger siblings, so he was probably used to having a little 'shadow'.  We took them, and my young cousin, to the LVIS Fair at  Mulford Farm. Raymond got his first pony ride, and the picture shows anxiety on his face. He was happy to have Butch with us, though, my cousin being only two years older than Raymond was. I think all the kids had a fun time that day.

At the end of the two weeks, we returned Raymond to the spot where we'd picked him up two weeks earlier.  I wondered what he felt as we said goodbye. I had grown to love the little guy, and hoped to stay in touch with his family so that perhaps we could have him come the next summer. As it turned out, my letters were never answered, and I finally stopped writing.  We never saw Raymond again and I've wondered often about the youngster who would now be fifty-one years old!  Has he any memories of that short visit that summer in 1969? Are they good ones? How did he grow up? Did he live a good life and become an upstanding man? I don't want to think any negative thoughts, but hope he was raised in a wonderful home. I hope he's had an education and has become a man of integrity. 

But, alas, I fear I'll never know.

2009- Wading Through More Changes

Sometimes things happen when you least expect them. Such was the case in August of 2009.  We'd had our northern grandchildren with us for about six weeks, and they were, sadly, leaving that day. We left home at noon to take them to the airport, and after several delays, we finally saw the plane lift off.  We headed toward home, tired and hungry.

We arrived at 10:30 pm, without any dinner, and I felt a warm, squishy carpet under my feet when I stepped through the front door.  I flipped on the light switch and realized that there were inches of water underfoot.  I heard water pouring from somewhere, and waded through the living room to the kitchen, finding water flowing from under the cabinet door beneath the sink.  I saw that the warm water was coming from a tube...the water supply to the dishwasher. I quickly turned the valve, turning off the flow. Then I went to the front door to let my husband know of our crisis. "We have a flood", I told him.  Boy...did we ever!

Upon further investigation, we discovered that the entire first floor of the house was saturated with water. The wall to wall carpet in the living room, hall and bedroom were soaked. The vinyl floors of the laundry room, kitchen and guest bath had about 2 inches of water in each.   We set about mopping up the puddles, quitting to go to bed at close to 2 am....and still without dinner.

The next few weeks were spent dealing with the All State Insurance Company, which was wonderful! We got the clean up folks from ServPro in to do the job of clearing out the carpets, vinyl, wet insulation under the house. The house was sprayed throughout the crawl space and on the interior to prevent any molds from growing. The insurance company took care of everything, bringing in the proper  subcontractors at the right times, so that we would be inconvenienced as little as possible. Since it was faulty work by the builder that caused our problem, the insurance company sought him out for repayment of expenses.

We were told that we could stay in a motel, paid for by insurance, and we had offers to stay with friends, my Mom, or actually move into a friend's vacant, fully furnished mobile home. However, we chose to live with the mess and the  huge, noisy, green fans they brought in to dry the floors and the underside of the lower cabinets. All of the rooms downstairs had a steady drone of two or three hot fans in each area, but they did the job well. 

We slept upstairs, ate out a lot and just made the best of things. We survived the procedure until it was finished just before Thanksgiving. Sometimes you just have to 'tread water', you know? I think it's ironic that we live in real drought conditions every summer, and that year we had a problem with a tiny, nut and tube disconnection that caused a very costly flood!

Along the way, we had decisions to make.  The new vinyl floors needed to be chosen. We had allowances from the insurance company toward replacement of flooring. Did we want to pay out of pocket above the allowance and put in wood floors instead of wall to wall carpet? We chose to do that for the living room, and upgraded the bedroom carpet. Looking back now, I wish we'd put wood down instead, in our room, but for some reason, we didn't.  (It's something we want to do one day, so I'm not sure why we didn't do it when we had the house torn apart then! DUH!) 

It seemed a good idea to paint, as long as everything was dismantled downstairs. The insurance company paid to have our kitchen painted, since some of the walls were damaged by water. My husband painted our room and the living room was done too.  It felt 'new' downstairs.  And it was wonderful living with wood floors in the front room, instead of that wall to wall carpet, which I've never been a fan of.

Lots of projects have been done, but we still have some to do. (Isn't that always true for a home owner?)  The upstairs hasn't been 'decorated' in the true sense of the word, though it's  comfortably furnished to accommodate our visitors. My craft room is in serious need of a firm touch of my hand! (Can you say, "Clutter" ?)  

  

   Outside, this area patiently awaits the building of a brick patio, and  decent grass surrounding it. My dream is to put our antique iron fence c.1886 along the right side, with a garden along the outside of the fence, running along the back of the sunroom beyond. Somewhere near the patio, I hope the small pond/fountain can be placed, so that we can hear it. The fragrant Mock Orange will be planted near the sitting area, too, so we can enjoy it in the Spring.

This may take some time to be accomplished, but I have every hope. Stay tuned....and someday you may actually see the finished product!

Home Projects Part 2

The house was more and more comfortable to us as we made these changes. Though we were content with the way it felt, there were still some asthetics we wanted to improve. So, we removed the awful aluminum, square, ridged porch posts and added wood, colonial ones and a railing to the front porch.

We enjoyed entertaining our friends and family, including summer visits from our northern grandchildren. We continued to add flowers to the beds...and we made a small vegetable garden. We also determined that it was time for the building of a shed. We chose a level spot in the back yard, and it was erected. Some time later, we wished we had put it down the slope a bit farther from the house, which would not have interfered so much with the future social area in the back yard.

 That summer we felt as if we'd made some headway in making our house and property a 'home'. Our gardens were growing well...as were the non-stop weeds.  Our vegetable garden produced nicely. The shed was finished and being stocked. The porch was comfortable!

And then....came the flood. Tune in tomorrow to wade with me through the alterations that brought!

Home Projects-Part 1

My father once said that you need to have three houses before you really know what you want in a home.  I've lived in many more than three shelters in my lifetime, but I now live in my third-owned one.  I'm quite content in it, but still there are some changes I'd make if  I could. We have made some changes to the place since we bought it four and a half years ago....some that we wanted to make, some that we were forced into.

This is how the house looked when I first saw it, in May 2005. Kind of blah, kind of bare...but I could see the potential it had, and basically it's farmhouse design appealed to me. It was what I'd always dreamed of owning (except for the vinyl siding!)

The house was the first on this street of our subdivision and was still underconstruction then. Just before Thanksgiving, 2005, we purchased the finished house that had no patio in back, off the sliding doors, and other than small hollies at the front porch and a small gum tree in the center of the front yard, no landscaping.

I set about some gardening...running from the side of the front porch toward the boundary with the lot next door. I have no pictures of that to share, but it runs parallel to the porch and forms two gardens of flowers, with an arch in the center, a separation between side yard and front. Because the yards of the entire subdivision looked like this one at the time, there was clear view across each persons properties. We planted some cypress which will someday grow tall enough to give us some privacy in our yard! We also added a full row of plants along the side the house.

Next, we built on a sunroom, where our family gathers for holiday dinners and birthday celebrations. It's added another sitting room to our home which gives us three season use. Because it is unheated, it's not taxed, and for summer, we've got a window AC unit in it, as well as 2 ceiling fans. 

The sliding doors which were on end of the dining area (where you see those rustic steps on the first picture) were taken out when we built this porch. We replaced them with the window which was in the center of the back wall, between the dining area and the kitchen.  We installed double french doors where that window was.  The walk area is far more suitable to us, since doing that. We used to have to trip over chairs at the table in order to get out of the sliders!

Tune in tomorrow for more changes!

Today...

Today I have to go buy a gallon of milk. While I'm out, I'll head to town to peruse the aisles of the nurseries. I've been looking at empty porch railing boxes for too long!  It's time now to fill them...actually it was time a few weeks ago.

What color will it be that will grace the porch?  Last year we had red salvia and some geraniums, with hanging baskets of ferns above and a couple of potted red rose bushes in front of the hollies at the front of the porch. It was really quite pretty. The red showed nicely from the road against the backdrop of the gray house and the white railings.  I have determined that it must be something bright, in order to be seen well from the road.  The trouble with last year's salvia in the rail boxes was that they got too lanky. Sitting in the Adirondack chair, I couldn't see anything through the red blooms.   So, this year, it must be something lower....and maybe trailing.

I wish I could find something that would bloom all summer long and be perennial, but it doesn't seem that there is anything of the kind.  Annuals are likely to be long blooming, but do not return. Perennials return, but are usually short bloomers.  I don't like spending so much money on things that just die after a few months. We want to offer a pleasant welcome to anyone who approaches our front door...colorful without being garish, attractive and not over-stated.  What a quandry!

So, off I go, in search of the perfect floral decorations for the front of the house. It's all about 'curb appeal', you know.    

In Other Words....

Golly!  Does anyone speak  English anymore?  When I was in school I had a teacher, Mrs. Haas, who was a stickler  for using perfect grammar and pronounciation. She also didn't allow 'slang' in her classroom.  (Uh oh...I called Mrs. Haas a 'stickler'!  I'd better change that. Mrs. Haas was 'anal' about slang.  No, more slang.  She was totally bonkers about using words that weren't 'real'.  Ok...well,  you get my drift! She was absolutely determined to teach us to speak correctly.)

Mrs. Haas would be having a fit these days. Everywhere I look, including in the mirror, there are words coming out of people's mouths that are anything but the Queen's English.  Let's see... we're going to watch T.V in HD, or we'll view something we've DVR'd.  If that's not worth watching, we'll pull out the VCR and watch a VHS tape we've recorded.

When we travel in our SUV, or the RV, we'll entertain ourselves with music from a CD. We'll travel I-85 on our day trip, stopping for lunch at Mickey D's along the way.   We'll pass by USC on our route, and make a big deal of the weather, which is just the opposite of the predictions on CBS.

We think about the buds we have who are in ICU. There are two others who have COPD, another is being treated for CHF.  We're freaked out over a friend's marital break up. We're glad that we treat each other with TLC.

I think of the way Mrs. Haas would view this blog. She'd totally flip out!  If she was still teaching today, she'd be greeted by her students with something like "Yo, Mrs. H!  Wassup?"  The poor woman tried...she really did, and for the most part, she succeeded.  But, these days I think she'd be fighting a losing battle.

The Fruit and Veggie Stand

During the winter months, we purchase fruit in the grocery store, getting apples, oranges, tangerines and  grapes. This time of  year, we don't even LOOK at the fruits on the stores' shelves.  When we can get the fresh, local  items, why would we want things that have been grown, picked while green and shipped across the country? 

This is a delightful time of year for us. We go to our local veggie and fruit stands and revel in the fragrance of fresh strawberries that greet us as we walk in. Then we pass the melons, displayed in an old double wash tub,  with their rich, musky smell. My mouth waters as I pass the peaches and cross over to the wooden shelves, divided to hold the bright, red tomatoes.  There are already zucchini and summer squash, albeit small and young. "Ah", I think, "I may become a summer vegetarian!" 

We pass the roasted peanuts in their shell, two bins of them...one salted, the other unsalted. We head for the counter in order to pay for our goods, and realize that the peaches there are $2 higher than the ones we purchased from an indidual up the street a few minutes ago.   As the 'newbie' rings up our gathered goods, my husband places two ears of corn on the counteer too.  Tonight's dinner of grilled salmon is going to have some delicious side dishes!

Dessert is sure to be a fruit salad, and with some left over for lunch tomorrow, I'll add a bit of cottage cheese, and find myself quite content at the end of each of those meals!  For good measure, I might even decide to have breakfast in the morning, which is a rarity...just so I can cut up some peaches to add to it!

Soon the local Farmers Markets will be opening, with peppers and onions, preserves, breads, and all manner of vitamin packed nutrition! Summer fruits and vegetables are definitely worth the wait...and the money! I think I'll even consider the heat a blessing, since it is surely one to the juicy food I enjoy so much at this time of year!  I hope you're all enjoying your area's local fare, although it may be early for some of you. When the time is right, indulge yourself, and get the nutritional benefits of whatever is available to you.  Enjoy in good health!