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…
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…
All of us who grew up in households headed by children of the Great Depression are no doubt familiar with the proverb waste not want not. It basically decrees that you should make do with what you have. And so it is with Amish names. Over these past 500 or so blog posts, I’ve mentioned more than once that Farmer Gary is enamored with the Amish. It was only today, though, while recording this story, that I tied together that…
Have you read this book by my second-favorite storyteller, Jean Shepherd? In God We Trust … All Others Pay Cash was the inspiration for the cult-favorite holiday flick A Christmas Story. Jean Shepherd, by the way, grew up in Indiana. And his father worked for the Borden Milk Company. Today’s story is from my favorite storyteller, though, who also grew up in Indiana. Farmer Gary tells this tale with a twinkle in his eye, as he was spared direct involvement…
Decades ago – before we were even engaged – I told Farmer Gary if I ever wrote a memoir, the title would be Kowzerout! We’d been dating for a few months, so Gary invited me to the farm for Sunday dinner. It felt like something out of a Laura Ingalls Wilder story, as his mom, Rita, put on a nice spread. After we finished dinner, Rita shooed us into the living room while she washed the dishes. (She refused my…
I was really hoping to find out “turnabout is fair play” was coined by William Shakespeare. Alas, its earliest application may be lost to history, but Abraham Lincoln was an early user of the phrase, so we’ll keep it in play with today’s story. As you may recall, my father‘s entire life of home ownership was tortured by squirrels (see Nuts to you! from 2019). He and Mom loved to feed the birds in their many backyards, from Massachusetts to…
In addition to being a City Mouse / Country Mouse couple, Farmer Gary and I are also polar opposites when it comes to air temperature. “Is it cold in here?” I ask him from October to May. His reply is always a slight shrug and “it feels fine to me.” Well. The other day, I decided to press the issue. With my chilled foot hovering over a floor vent, I declared the air coming through was not in the least…
You may remember the tragic story of Peter Schmitt: “The $2 Murder.” Peter’s mother, Maria Theresia Mehling Schmitt, was a relative from Gary’s father’s side of the family. (Even though Mehling was Gary’s mom’s maiden name.) I can just hear Gary’s Mehling cousins in chorus: “Prove it!” That is what all the online genealogy classes I take preach, too. Not to mention my journalism professors in college. And so, courtesy Ancestry.com: Now that we’ve got that established, let’s learn a…
Farmer Gary‘s great-grandfather Anton Mehling was born on October 2, 1862. To be completely honest, my interest in Anton started with his wife. His second wife. And that incredible hat: They married on April 8, 1913. Anton had been a widower for three years; Minnie had lost her husband in 1912. Minnie’s maiden name was Philomena Pfaff (according to Gary, the first “f” is silent). She married Fred Tillman, who was born in Prussia but grew up in southern Indiana,…