Old Shed, Reminiscing and Gratitude

This old shed, bordering Prospect Gardens, has sheltered the Garden's tools since we sold our nearby home nearly four years ago. It's perched on public land adjacent to Ernie and Jeanne's former home. Ernie and Jeanne sold the house last November. They moved to an independent living retirement community.

Ernie built the shed for storing wood used to heat their home which they purchased in November 1976.  According to Ernie, "back then my back was strong & shoulders were up to hefting & swinging a 10 lb splitting ax."  I will miss Ernie's and Jeanne's presence in the neighborhood and those pleasant chats with Ernie when we met along the Southwest Path.

Katie and her husband purchased the home and will be moving in, along with their three children, in the spring.  I met Katie and after some pleasant chit-chat we turned our attention to the old shed.  We decided that the dilapidated shed, covered with lead paint, must be removed. So sometime in the near future the old shed will be history. It's replacement will be a new metal shed. In the meantime, tools, hoses and a wheelbarrow are in Laura's basement. Thank you Laura, for providing this temporary shelter.

The old shed and the Holiday season caused me to reminisce about past Holiday seasons. Here's the decorated sanctuary of Pulaski's Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary (BVM) church. BVM was once the world headquarters of the Franciscan Order. Besides the large Gothic church, the complex once included a monastery, a print shop and a farm.

The poor quality of the picture masks the beauty of the tall evergreen trees covered with  lights and shimmering tinsels. The Liss brothers, owners of a gas station across from BVM, would acquire and put up the trees. Others would help put on the lights and hang the tinsel. The Liss family also had a gas delivery service. Ed, one of the brothers, delivered gas to our family farm, about six miles south of Pulaski.

My family faithfully attended BVM, including midnight mass on Christmas Eve. We would pile into our car; always bought used. When I was a preteen, an older brother or sister, still in their teens and newly licensed, would be the driver.  My Mother and seven of her children still at home would be jammed into the car and all bundled up against the bitter cold. With great anticipation we made our way through the dark night. Chores were done and now it was time to celebrate Christmas Mass.

The church would be packed; standing room only. Lights would be turned off just before mass began; the church shimmering from the lights of the tinseled tall evergreen trees. Shortly, thereafter a large contingent of brown robed monks moved into the decorated sanctuary, while singing in Latin a Christmas hymn.  My young spirit soared as I felt the sense of community.

Earlier that evening my Mother prepared a special meatless meal.  On each of our plates would be an oplatki or wafer. We took turns passing our oplatki, broke off a piece and exchanged blessings.

Once as a teenager I went to the monastery to purchase the oplatki. I opened the heavy entrance door after ringing the bell. I can still sense the rush of hot air as I went down the hall to a cashier-like opening. A monk appeared and cheerfully sold me the oplatki. As I walked away, I heard the noise of the printing presses.

This ancient and sacred Polish tradition of sharing oplatki is still practiced. In 1989 when Emily was five, Ann, Emily and I shared oplatki. I still have the colorful envelope. The front of the envelope shows a wealthy Polish family of ten sharing oplatki.  All are dressed in their finest Polish clothes. It looks like they lived during the late 19th century. The family was more wealthy than mine. Polish art work hangs on all four walls of their dinning room. The family sits around a dinning room table on comfortable chairs. Our table was a long harvest table with two chairs for the adults and homemade benches for the kids.

 Another anticipated Holiday event was the community Christmas program at Polandi, the one room school I attended. Here's me and my three brothers in front of the stage's curtain. Can you guess which one is me? I'm next to my older brother Tom, then it's Lou and Ernie.

Preparations began right after Thanksgiving. Everybody had a singing part or a role in a short play.  Tom was a star of of most programs. His rendition of Silent Night still reverberates through my mind, along with the sustained applause from the audience packed into the one room school house. Tom still sings in his church's choir.

My sister Angie and her friend, Theresa, spent hours painting Christmas scenes on the large east facing windows. I was reminded of their artful skills as I passed the windows of our neighborhood book store, pictured here.

Hotel Red, at the corner of Regent and Monroe, also has large red and white ornaments painted on their front windows. I often stop at Hotel Red on my walks and rest awhile. The virtual burning logs on two televisions are slightly jarring. Oh well, the second decade of the 21st century is fast arriving.

I also reminisced about Emily's childhood.  Here's her first 1984 Christmas. We lived in Andover, MA. She is just over a month old. My sweet mother-in-law Ethel was with us.

Ethel's homemade Christmas cookies were always a hit. She made at least fifteen different kinds, sharing them with friends and family members. She often stayed with us from Christmas day to early January, after we moved to Madison in August 1986.

We would drive back from Milwaukee after having Christmas eve dinner with my brother-in-law Chuck, Kathy, his wife, and Steven and Andrea, their children. Ethel came with a tin of her cookies and with a fruit cake from the Sisters of Mount Mary in Milwaukee. The fruit cake was always the last to be eaten. Then Ethel would jokingly say that it was time to go home since the cookies and fruit cake were gone.

Emily visited Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus at the Hilldale Mall, which was enclosed then. I think the year is 1986. The Clauses slowly walked the long hallway connecting stores and gently approached and greeted children. No loud "Ho-Hos" were proclaimed. Emily found this routine less threatening than standing in line to crawl into Santa's lap. We sometimes forget that a big beaded man can be rather menacing to a child.

Here's one of my favorite childhood pictures of Emily from 1987. Her exuberance about the Holiday is obvious as she stands next to a plywood Santa.

Santa, made by Ann's Uncle Joe, is still with us. When Ann was a child, Santa was on the roof of their home, latched to the chimney. Now he has a corner in our apartment.

Below is Emily's beloved Sugar who lived to be 18 years old. I often refer to Sugar as Emily's sibling. Both grew up together. It's 1994 and Emily is ten years old. Sugar was Emily's constant companion who played with her and her friends. Emily sometimes put Sugar in her doll carriage along with her other dolls. Sugar would tolerate it for awhile.

If Sugar needed anything she never bothered Emily. She came to Ann or me. Sugar usually sneezed when she needed to go outdoors. Now an ornament with her picture is on our Christmas tree.

I have more memories of  Holidays with Emily, including recent ones. Emily now lives in Oakland. She has found her tribe, enjoys her friends and her work at Ancestry.com in San Francisco. Her forty-five minute BART commute is tolerable.

We visited Emily this last November and a week before Thanksgiving. We prepared and shared a Thanksgiving meal. The five days of sunshine with temperatures in the mid-60s were a special gift.

We enjoyed visiting the San Francisco Academy of Science and just hanging out with Emily. The Academy's aquarium, with its walk through passage when you are surrounded by fish, was especially enchanting.  Precious time together.

Christmas 2018 was spent with Emily in Oakland. Here's our little tree and presents. We attended Christmas Eve services at the historic First Unitarian Church near downtown Oakland. The church opened in 1891 and was built using only materials from California. Most notable are the sanctuary's dramatic redwood arches built of first growth redwood harvested from the Oakland/Berkeley hills. Renovation and retrofitting of  the East Wing and one of the halls was completed in 1998. The sanctuary was renovated and retrofitted in 2009.

The next day we, along with Naomi, Emily's roommate, prepared and shared Christmas dinner. They have been friends since middle school. Afterwards we squeezed into Naomi's Fiat and went to Redwood Regional Park on the north side of Oakland. Hugged a few Redwoods.

Two days after Christmas 2018 we flew to Los Angles on our way to Ojai where our long time friends, Darrel and Beth, now live. They picked us up at LAX and took as back for the return trip; a true sign of long term friendship. Darrel and Beth were witnesses at our 1979 Portland courthouse wedding. They were living in Bend, OR at that time.

Emily will not be home for this Christmas.We are planning to visit via "Facetime", another facet of 21st century living. Our 2019 tree is up and decorated. We most likely will attend the 7 o'clock Christmas Eve Contemplative Service at our church, First Unitarian Society. My need for a spiritual community is still strong. Christmas day will be quiet as Ann and I enjoy a peaceful day.

I am filled with gratitude as I look back on these past holidays. In the spirit of this season, I share this poem that I recently received from my friend, Claire. Thank you, Claire. The poem reminds me to be grateful for the Earth and that human beings have many of the same crucial elements for life as  the Earth and the stars. In other words we humans, like all beings, are tiny extensions of Earth and the Universe.

Peace to you and your loved ones.

Prayer for the Great Family

by Gary Snyder

Gratitude to Mother Earth, sailing through night and day—

    and to her soil: rich, rare and sweet 

        in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Plants, the sun-facing light-changing leaf

    and fine root-hairs; standing still through the wind

    and rain; their dance is in the flowing spiral grain

        in our mind so be it. 

Gratitude to Air, bearing the soaring Swift and the silent

    Owl at dawn. Breath of our song

    clear spirit breeze

        in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Wild Beings, our brothers, teaching secrets,

    freedoms, and ways; who share with us their milk;

    self-complete, brave, and aware

        in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to Water: clouds, lakes, rivers, glaciers;

    holding or releasing; streaming through all

    our bodies salty seas

        in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Sun: blinding pulsing light through

    trunks of trees, through mists, warming caves where

    bears and snakes sleep—he who wakes us—

        in our minds so be it.

Gratitude to the Great Sky

    who holds billions of stars—and goes yet beyond that—

beyond all powers, and thoughts

and yet is within us—

Grandfather Space.

The Mind is his Wife.

      so be it.

                                                        A Mohawk prayer