May 15th is here again, and with it the memory of my Dad, gone 8 years ago today.
Last year's post on this date held photos of my father's infamous trip to Florida as a young man engaged as a "driver" to a wealthy but not healthy local man. Remember this photo?
Last year in researching that story, readers may recall I had turned to my Aunt Pearl, Dad's sister-in-law (wife to his older brother Warren). Pearl has always lived in Cabot (as in the cheese) and has always been a character (as in I mean it, a CHARACTER).
I called her up and she said "Girl, whadyou callin' me from FRANCE fer?" She told me some about Dad's adventure "down south" with Mr. Bruce Young, etc which is what I wrote up for last year's remembrance on today's date.
But she also talked about another clear memory she had of her and Warren, and Dad, and Elaine, one of Dad's sisters. Pearl's other story to tell me over the phone that day was about a drive to Ascutney, Vermont. Here are a few photos to go with it:
Just before Léna's birth, in my mad frenzy to clean out and tidy up, I ran across my notes from that phone call with Pearl, 84 years old. She told about one day when her and Warren took Dad down to Ascutney for a summer job he had there. Elaine came along for the ride. Pearl said the whole time Elaine was singing a song she had in her head "I had the craziest dream". Pearl noted "Wayne and Warren were hollerin' at her to STOP, thought they's gonna pitch her right outta the fool car! Warren said we was gonna leave her right there with Wayne down to Ascutney if she didn't change her song. Wayne and Warren were always trying to get folks to use a little reason."
So the 4 of them embarked in a little adventure that day, in Warren's old car. They stopped and had a picnic which you see in the above photo. Below, clearly Elaine was behind the lens on this one, Dad probably ordered her to get a photo of the car!
Pearl also told me that day over the phone that she always remembered my Dad during those years fondly "fore he was married" cause when he came often to work on their farm in Cabot he helped with the dishes, which "was astonishin'", said Pearl "Warren never done a dish! Then we'd play cards and I'd get to winnin' and Wayne'd say 'Aren't you sick of this yet Pearl?' just cause he was knew he was licked!"
Last week I myself got the astonishing news that Pearl had died, which after losing Aunt Eleanor took my breath right away. Call it post-partum hormones or who knows what, but I broke down into hysteria the second I saw the email subject line. Pearl, blind and with many many other health problems, just kept ticking for many years now and was sharp as a TACK. Joan and I went to visit her with Estelle and Cedric in my last visit home and when we arrived she had made us CHICKEN SALAD in little pastries. Even blind, she had adapted to life as it came to her. We were all shocked that she had put on that little spread for us in her accessible and adapated assisted-living apartment complex where she lived alone in Cabot. And needless to say, there was cheese.
Here's a photo of Pearl and her sister Ruth, with fish:
WWII days, Warren leaving on the train to go to his deployment.
The family gets larger - cousins Gloria and Judy, and there were 3 more kids to come....
One thing Pearl said to me more than once in recent years was how she, during her decades at the Cabot creamery, always wanted to perform dairy tests on mother's breastmilk. She was fascinated by this and thought it would be so interesting to perform a study on the fat contect in mother's breastmilk. I thought of her in my late nights 2 weeks ago in the hospital, grinning to myself in the dark recalling her saying "Oh geez, how I'd like to have done some testin' on that milk right out of the teat! I'm sure you've got a high fat content, lookit Estelle, she's tall as a bean!"
A very rare shot of my phantom grandfather, the one none of us in my family ever knew. A pipe clenched in his mouth, and a fish in the other. Pearl knew him well, I always envied her that.
Pearl's son Joe, named for my grandfather, said that the day Pearl died last week, she woke up at 4:30 a.m. and announced, after having not eaten for several days, that she wanted eggs, bacon, toast and coffee. The night before she had her granddaughter wheel her around to the others in her complex to say goodbye as this time she knew it was the end. Here's is a quote from my cousin Joe's message about Pearl death, which is spot on:
"Because she never got Warren’s wedding ring back from the undertakers (they “lost” it), she asked for help getting off her rings as she said “I don’t want these to go with me” but because her hands were so swollen they couldn’t get them off and told her not to worry about it. After supposedly resting in her room for an hour she called for them to come get her rings, which she was holding in her hands".A character, right to the end. All those stories, gone. Luckily we've got many on tape and on paper, but so many more lost. At Dad's funeral I had shared a quote that "when a old person dies, it is like a library is burning", and thinking of Dad and Pearl today that is certainly never more true.
Estelle plays with Manou:
Saturday afternoon Estelle goes to the park with Eliott, who tries his best to break the springs on this piece of playground equipment:
Estelle goes to the park in Villefranche with Daddy on Sunday morning...
These playground photos are really for the benefit of Estelle's young cousins, who like to see what playgrounds in France are like:
Back at the ranch, Estelle serves everyone food from her kitchen, wearing a Ben & Jerry's t-shirt and underwear:
Estelle shows her grandparents what to do with maple syrup:
Estelle gets taken to an outdoor festival in the Roman ampitheatre ruins in Nice, and rides on a merry-go-round:
Estelle shoes how to rock Léna's casbah, uh, cradle:
Estelle holds Léna while she hollers with hunger:
Estelle shows Léna how to stretch:
I, meanwhile, do nothing except nurse the baby and eat strawberries on a spear:
A little video from the festival yesterday that Thomas took as I didn't go.... wait until Karen Carpenter stops singing in the background before you launch the video, that way you can hear the audio that goes with it.
