He was assigned the rank of Musician in the U.S. Army when he enlisted from York County, Maine, during the Spanish American War. I asked Farmer Gary, who reads a lot of military-history books, if that meant he was a drummer. “Bugler, probably,” was his reply. That makes sense. From the start, I’ll confess to not (yet) finding a place for Augustus in our family tree. The more I dig around, though, the more it becomes clear his story is…
Earlier this spring, I came upon an article that reveled in the fact that for a few weeks each March, musician Gary Numan is older than actor Gary Oldman. When I mentioned this phenomenon to Farmer Gary, he regaled me (for about the millionth time) with his theory of the name Gary. Because he thinks about this a lot. He’s convinced that all Garys on this earth are in their late sixties and early seventies. And he’s concerned. He worries…
Another piece of paper so old it’s turning brown and brittle. It’s newsprint, which seems to age as it comes off the press. But still, 1980 was 46 years ago. This is a poem Mom wrote in 1977. When her alma mater asked for a poem to print in the Summer 1980 edition of their Alumnae News, I’m not sure they expected this: the cold eye the cold eye sleeps on sunday the devil turns his back the witch sits…
This month’s reads had something in common: habits. From a nun’s attire to questionable grammar to a drunken bet, the stories made me appreciate all the more this habit of reading books. Book 1: Maigret Sets A Trap by Georges Simenon It’s rather amusing that the latest detective in my reading life is a Frenchman. Created by a Belgian. My favorite fictional detective, after all, is Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, a Belgian who is forever correcting the misunderstanding that he’s…
Nowadays, some tuck away good ideas and clever sayings on Pinterest. Others create a Vision Board to manifest their personal future. A hundred years ago, though? My grandpa had a Clippings Book. This 6″x9″ idea keeper is a scrapbook, really. It’s fascinating to gently leaf through the brittle pages and see what was important to Grandpa as a young man. Dad’s dad (my Grandpa Vayo, see The family scholar for his story) was born in Maine in 1899. As a…
When I wrote about my godfather, Bob Caplinger, last year (“The West Virginia Hillbilly”), I had a feeling there was something more. There was something else my parents had saved and I just had to find it. There it was, in amongst our family archives. In 1991, Bob wrote an autobiographical short story, dedicated it to my parents and younger brother, and dropped it in the mail to them. Here it is: SATURDAY NIGHT IN CAPITALS A short story by…
Last night, Farmer Gary replaced the light bulbs in our ceiling fan. We have a vaulted ceiling in our bedroom, so he used a stepstool and replaced all four, even though only one was out. The other three would be saved for use closer to the ground. Practical as always, that man. As is typical in our house, that quick chore touched off a series of stories. In this case, stories about light bulbs. The first involved Grandpa Mehling. Gary…
Looking back, maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to swap vomit stories with James. Our youngest son was feeling lousy and recounting how rarely he’d regurgitated in his 26 years. Ah, but not me. I turned it into an unwinnable contest: “I threw up every day of my three pregnancies. That’s 27 months.” Sorry, James. In less than a week, he would be onstage at the University of Southern Indiana, playing guitar in the Lucas Washington band, opening for…
It feels like a carnival game – Spin the Lucky Wheel – when I drop a search word in among the vast collection of Mom’s poetry. Sure enough, it being Tax Day, there’s a poem including the word taxes. Written in 1972, “Pilgrimage” reflects Mom’s thoughts about living close to her hometown of New Haven again, where there were relatives a-plenty. She loved them all dearly, but sometimes in her childhood years, she felt crowded. Pilgrimage Myself, who couldn’t tolerate…
Gary has told me more than once that the saddest place in the world is the section of a graveyard set aside for babies. Thankfully, improvements in healthcare and the development of vaccines have helped tremendously over the years. Far fewer infants die at birth. But still, some of the most precious and fragile among us do not survive those early hours. Gary and I went to the St. Ferdinand Cemetery yesterday evening to pay our respects to a little…