HAS ANYONE SEEN BAMBI?

Last Monday, the first Monday after Thanksgiving, was the first day of deer hunting using a rifle here in Pennsylvania. 

When I was a child, the first day of Buck Season was on the first of December.  It did not matter which day of the week it fell on, with the exception of Sunday.  In that case, since hunting is not permitted on Sunday, it fell on Monday, the second of December.

The business section of our town lays on flat land, or a valley running north and south.  This is rimmed on the east and the west by hills.  I lived on the hill on the east side of town.  During the Great Depression, the WPA built stone steps up the slope of the hill leading from the center of town to the east side.  This allowed the people living on or near the top of the hill and beyond easier access to the schools and businesses located in the town. 

At the top of these steps, the WPA also built a large stone bench as a resting place for those walking to and from their homes to the shops, businesses, and schools.  It was also where the three main routes coming from the north, south, and west met.

On the evening of the thirtieth of November it became the meeting place for the east side children to enjoy the annual spectacular sight.  As far as you could see up any of those three roads were the headlights of the hunters arriving in our area as they sought out their camps and lodgings for the big day.

While the lights were an exceptional show, the first day of hunting meant that cars with dead deer tied onto their fenders would proudly parade through town, proving the prowess of the drivers as skilled hunters.  Buck season was special because the local paper, as well as the local businesses, offered prizes for many of “the first”—the first deer, the first spike, the first of the various total points of the antlers. 

My father was a hunter—deer, squirrel, rabbit, groundhog, grouse, ring-necked pheasant, turkey —they were all welcomed additions to our table in those depression and post-depression days.  Dad won prizes twenty times in the twenty-five years he participated.

My birthday also happened to be on the first of December.  When he would bring home his “catch,” he would jokingly tell me, “Well, here’s your birthday present.”  I would much rather have seen Bambi alive than dead!  Especially since Dad would hang the deer on the back porch roof strut that was about a foot away from the opening of the back door.  I know it is silly, but as a young’un, whenever I had to go in or out of that door, I was always terrified as to what would happen if that deer ever came alive and started kicking.  Mom must have told him how I felt, because later on Dad began hanging his deer on the iron clothes posts in the yard.

My father never let us have any of the tails as trophies of his accomplishments.  When I was in high school, I was quite surprised when he brought the tail of his twenty-fifth deer to me as a present.  He later also gave me the tail of a grouse he had spread and dried.  The following February my dad died of a heart attack at the age of forty-eight.  I kept those trophies for over sixty years.

When I was in junior high, the school board decided to declare the first day of hunting season as a legal holiday for any student who could show a valid hunting license.  That meant that most of the girls as well as the boys who did not hunt still had to report to classes.  This did not sit very well with the student body.  But what is the saying?  That’s the way it is.

So when congress enacted the “Monday Holiday,” the State changed the first day of buck season to the Monday after Thanksgiving, and the school system declared it a legal holiday for all students, not just the hunters.  Of course, with the whole weekend for the hunters to arrive at their destination, the drama of their appearance fell drastically.

The deer “bagged” had to be reported to the game commission, and if a doe were accidently killed during the week-long buck season, or a buck accidently killed during the one-day doe season, the deer would be confiscated and the hunter fined.  The meat did not go to waste.  The Commission had a list of handicapped individuals unable to hunt and the deer would go to the families on that list. 

We were married about twelve years before we found out about that list and the fact we were eligible.  For a good seven years we received either illegal kills or sometimes a road kill.  The deer we received had already been gutted, so our part of this deal was that we would skin the deer and cut off the head.  We were then to return to the game wardens the skin with the head intact. 

Our younger son was about five years old when we started this exchange and he wanted to help with the skinning,   He felt his part was to sit in a chair and make gagging sounds while we worked.  He was quickly barred from the room when my stomach started churning.

We canned the venison and found that it was a very tasty addition to a meal…much more so than the beef we have canned.

What about you?  Did/do you hunt?  Your parent or an older sibling?  Or, like me, do you prefer catching sight of your Bambi eating at the side of the road or from your apple tree?   

HAVE YOU EVER HEARD OF POLIO?

First, I want to wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.

I also want to apologize for not having a new posting for last week.  Time ran out for me before I was able to get my thoughts together and written down.  So I this week I decided to try a little harder and get this ready in advance.

My husband was not feeling at his best and so my time was taken up helping him.  He is now eighty years old and has been diagnosed with Post-Polio Syndrome, or PPS.  For most of my readers, I doubt very much if you have even heard of polio, unless it was in reference to your immunization shots.  But when we were children, polio was still a very feared and dreaded disease, especially among children, and during the “dog-days of summer” (another name for the month of August).

Polio itself has been around since Bible days.  In fact, it is mentioned by description in Matthew 8:6.  A centurion came to Jesus seeking healing for his servant boy.  The Amplified Bible puts it this way:  “Lord, my servant boy is lying at the house paralyzed and distressed with intense pains.”

Thanks to Dr. Jonas Salk and Dr. Albert Sabin, there are vaccines that can prevent people from getting the disease, although there is still no cure for polio.  Even now if someone gets this disease, the only thing that can be done is to treat the symptoms and let the disease “run its course.”  There are four strains of polio:

Mild:  People who have mild cases of polio do not even know they have it.  The symptoms are very similar to having a light case of the flu.  No after effects are experienced.      

Non-paralytic:  This kind of polio has stronger flu-like symptoms.  There is either very little or no pain and any muscle damage is usually light.  Resulting weakness is blamed on the “flu,” and regular everyday living eventually rebuilds the weakened muscles.

Paralytic:  This form of polio is the most painful.  If affects the spinal cord and/or the brain.  In ten to fourteen days, once polio has “run its course,” there is no more pain.  But any damage to the nerves lasts a lifetime.

When it attacks the lower spinal cord either the arms or the legs can be paralyzed.  This means the weakened arms or legs cannot function by themselves.  They must have help to be able to move.  Sometimes exercises can help arms and legs regain movement.  More often, braces are used to replace the necessary lost muscle strength.  People with weak legs choose either crutches and braced legs or wheelchairs to help them get around.

If polio attacks the upper spinal cord or the brain, it affects breathing and swallowing which can cause death.  Those who need help breathing use either a respirator and/or an iron lung.  An iron lung is a big tube-like “bed” one lies in.  A machine moves it’s “mattress” up and down to help the air go in and out of the lungs.

PPS:  The true definition for this fourth variety, is when someone who has already had polio  contracts the disease again, sometimes as many as thirty or forty years later.  PPS can strike the same place or a different part of the body and can cause paralysis even though the original polio did not.

However, now-a-days, the doctors have broadened the meaning of PPS to include accumulated health issues resulting from having had polio over a long period of time. 

My husband was nineteen months old when he contacted polio.  When the disease had run its course, he was left paralyzed in both of his legs.  So part of his PPS diagnosis concerns the fact that after seventy-four years of walking on crutches, the rotator cuffs in his shoulders have worn out and disappeared, making using his arms very painful.  As one of his doctors put it, “Arms were not made to be walked on for over seventy years.” 

Inadequate therapy due to non-experience of how to deal with a polio victim after five-bypass surgery, a diminished sense of balance, and extreme knee pain and sensitivity has confined to a bed, lift chair, or short periods in a wheelchair this man who used to amaze his classmates with the speed he could climb the ropes in gym class, do push-ups with his legs dangling in the air, fathered and raised three children, worked hard for over forty years to support his family, used to be able to climb in and out of boats, and holds a black belt in karate.

Even though his constant companion is pain, he still smiles, and attempts to live as normal a life as possible.

That’s why in my life, his needs come first.

RECYCLING, HABIT OR A WAY OF LIFE?

Just finished the first load of dishes and have the pots and pans soaking while the dishes, glasses, and silverware drain—and dry a little.  I never do dishes in the sink that I don’t think of my mother.  When she did dishes, if it was on, she wouldn’t miss her radio program, “Beulah.”  Other times, when I helped by drying and putting away, we would play games.  My favorite was when we would guess the song the other one hummed, and then we would often go off on a tangent and sing the song together.  I learned a lot of songs of her generation that way, and she learned some of mine.

I think I got into the practice of recycling by watching her when I was a little girl.  I can still see her at the sink, removing labels from the cans she had opened for supper. She’d already rinsed them when she had made supper, adding that bit of water to whatever she was making—and, yes, I picked up that habit, too.  When the dishes were done, Mom would wash them in the dishwater.  After they were dry, she would cut the bottom off the can, of course, that was way back when you could cut the bottom off the cans, slip both lids inside the can, and then step on the can and flatten it.  Many housewives were following the same practice, for this was during the war, and metal was in demand for defense.

We kids did our part for the war effort, too.  In those days, chewing gum was quite popular among the younger crowd.  And chewing gum was packaged a little differently than it is today.  Each of the sticks were wrapped in a paper that had a metal coating.  It took a little practice, but the skill of removing the foil from the paper could be learned.  We would gather these flimsy offerings into a ball.  Some of the older neighborhood kids had balls that were almost the size of a baseball!  That represented a lot of gum chewing!!  I never did know how the kids recycled those metal offerings for the war effort.

Sometimes we would take the foil wrapping and chew it.  That was rather electrifying, especially right after a trip to the dentist which included new metal fillings.

Recycling.

I remember when milk was delivered to the door in glass bottles—with a cardboard stopper.  The milkman would hop off his truck swinging his wire basket tote holding the milk for the household.  Most everything came in quarts or pints.  He’d take it to the door and leave it on the porch or stoop, pick up the empties that were waiting there, and then return to his truck.

When I was in sixth grade, we had a contest in our class to see who could write the best letter to one of the local milk companies asking if we could visit them.  It so happened, I won that contest, and had my letter sent to them.  I remember that part of the tour we had was past the machines used to wash and sterilize those bottles the milkmen had returned to the dairy.

We kids did our part in the recycling effort by scouring the neighborhood for pop bottles that were thrown away.  Pop came in a small size and a large size.  If we returned a small size bottle to the store, we’d get two cents per bottle.  For five bottles we could get a bottle of pop.  If we were really lucky and found a large bottle, we would get five cents as a refund.  We had a NEHI carbonated beverage company just outside the commercial part of town.  We passed this building every time we walked to town, and often stopped to watch through its big windows the bottles being washed, dried, and then filled with cola. 

Of course, this was when the beverage companies were permitted to wash, sterilize, and reuse the bottles.  And before plastic and aluminum took the place of glass.

I also remember when the daily newspapers for the month were stacked and tied with cord and placed at the curb for the trucks to come along and pick them up.  I had almost forgotten about those big trucks.  I wonder if it had also been for the war effort.

Today, we are encouraged to recycle “to save our planet.”  The only trouble is, that it is often difficult to find someone willing to take the recycling, or are so selective that you kind of wonder if it is worth it. 

For instance, in our area, the refuse companies will pick up recycling within the city limits only, but not in any of the rural areas, even though it is the same company that serves both.  The one pick-up station we visit is ten miles from our home, and also has its limitations: number one and number two plastic beverage containers, NO LIDS, aluminum cans, and glass bottles.  The area in Florida we lived in before we moved to Pennsylvania had a change in companies.  The new refuse company that won the bid for the whole county, accepts plastics up through number seven, aluminum included things like clean disposable pie pans and even clean cooking foil, and glass is glass.  They even welcome Pizza boxes.  They picked up household refuse twice a week, once a week they also picked up recycling (in a separate container), and once every two weeks they would pick up lawn trash (weeds, pruning, etc.).  And if you had large objects to get rid of, like a chair, couch, lawn timbers, once a month you could call and make arrangements to have it picked up and hauled away.  All included in the reasonable quarterly fee.  Now, if they had resources that were taking the recycled materials, why can’t local refuse companies find enough users to widen the articles they accept?  And maybe even be willing to pick them up, since the recyclers are probably already their customers? 

How do you feel about recycling?

   

GOD’S MIRACULOUS WHITE STUFF

It’s snowing!  The first snowfall of the year—and it’s only the first of November.

I love the first snowfall.  It makes me feel like getting out our old thirty-three-and-a-third vinyl record and playing Jackie Gleason’s orchestral version of Snowfall.

It also reminds me of the snowfalls when I was a kid.  I remember evenings when seven or eight of us neighborhood youngsters would congregate in the road at the corner under the arc-light and race around trying to catch those big, fluffy flakes in our mouths.  We’d giggle and laugh and thrill to the joy of the moment.

But these flakes aren’t those nice, huge, delicious ones.  Nor are they the little tiny balls that usually are blown in with the wild winds.  They are the small ones that surprise us by silently dropping down.  You know, the ones that are just the colder side of raindrops.  But glancing out the window, I see that every now and then, one of those large flakes is beginning to make an appearance.

For those of you who remember the boxes of laundry detergent our mothers used to use on washday, we would categorize those big fluffy flakes as Ivory Flakes, and the tiny round balls that would come barreling in as Ivory Snow.

Couldn’t help checking out the window again, and the flakes are getting larger.  This morning started with a heavy frost.  So the snow that is falling on the shed roofs, porches, and railings is beginning to pile up.  What’s landing on the grass, roads, or in the dirt hasn’t started gathering, yet.

I remember, as a kid, the snows would be almost thigh-deep.  We haven’t had snows that deep for a long time.  I have to kind of chuckle when I consider this.  I remember seeing a Family Circle cartoon where the father and his small son are walking side-by-side in the snow.  The father says something like I just did, how he remembered the snows being deeper.  The picture depicted the snow to be about knee-high for dad, but son was plowing through almost waist high white stuff!

Oh, and the fun we had playing in the snow!

Of course we did all the normal things one does in the snow—made angles and snowmen, threw snowballs, built forts, and even shoveled walks.

Our road was a street that cut in half the rise of a hill in the eastern residential area of our small city, DuBois.  Over by our favorite arc-light there was a crossroads.  Third Street, our street, was a paved road that, at this point, went up the hill to another level of our street.  Sherman Avenue crossed our road there and was a dirt alley that went on up the hill.  But the part that went down to the bottom level was paved.  Combined, it was a dandy place for sledding.  We knew we could be classified as “one of the bigger kids” when we had mastered the maneuver of coming down Third Street's hill, making the turn onto Sherman and, flying past all the houses, continue down the lower hill.  At the bottom of Sherman, we either made another left turn onto Lakeview Drive and ended up near the junction of the main road, or we ended up on the bank of the Tannery Dam which bordered the far side of Lakeview. 

Eventually, the city more-or-less discouraged that challenge by designating a good long run on Fourth Street, the upper level of the hill that ended in a nice field rather than near traffic or the dam.

About that time, my father built us a bobsled.  If I remember correctly, it could hold six or seven of us at a time.  Both of my older sisters actually mastered it’s steering.  I don’t remember why I never did.  Maybe it was because by the time I was old enough to do so, the weather pattern had changed and there wasn’t enough snow to make getting the bobsled down from the garage rafters worthwhile.

The flakes are now getting thicker and are starting to outline the individual branches of the trees of the woods on the lower part of our property.  If this keeps up, and the wind doesn’t start blowing, by evening we might have a lacy patchwork of limbs, branches and twigs to enjoy.  Especially if there is a full moon.

Our daughter-in-law was born and raised in the south.  Although she would like to have more, she’s had very little experience with living in and dealing with snow.  So when we do get a snowfall, we tease that she must be thinking of us.

Just checked the window again, and as happens with so many “first snows,” it has already not only stopped snowing, but also melted from the porches, railings, and many of the shed roofs.  Guess we will have to wait for another snow before we can enjoy moonlit lacy branches.