Down This Road: A Consciousness Stream

Benton Lutheran Church (Rural Crooks, South Dakota) - Image borrowed from Christian Begeman

Down This Road

Down this 1980 road, I danced with Dancer.  American by a Quarter, she was my greatest love.  Dancing Snow Bear strolled, stuttered and stomped.  A retired Rodeo Queen, she fought against the years of barrels against her knees.  I had Rodeo Queen Dreams myself, but she could not take me there, and there was no other way.

Down this 1978 road, I clamped tight to Lee’s waist.  Ripping, roaring, weeeeeeeeeeeeeee with full throttle, he sped to get us to baseball games on time.  The Crooks Merchants, because that is what we all were.  Toilers. Farmers. Slaughterers.  Slaves.  I did not dream to be the only girl, but shortstop I was and girl they deemed me.  I just wanted to play. 

Down this 1985 road, I clung tight to my own liberty.  Jimmy once pulled the brake on my Datsun 200X, which he borrowed from the space where it was parked in front of the bar next to the VFW.  Keys left in the ignition, he swerved, nearly flipped the vehicle, scaring the hell out of Tim.  I was off with his cousin Mike…fumbling toward adulthood beneath boot cut Levi seams.  They loved my car.  And they loved my horse.  But I could never dream that any one of them could love me.

Down this 1800’s road, my father’s mother’s mother’s parents settled in a sod house.  The Johnsons direct from the old country.  They founded this Lutheran church and this community.  I attended Sunday school in this church for a very brief time until my father decided he was wronged by someone there.  It didn’t take long.  Proclaimed Atheism and years of him antagonizing everyone, drove them away.  Years of him antagonizing my Mom, drove her away.  Years of him antagonizing me, drove me away.  Years of him antagonizing my brother, drove him to suicide.  I never dreamed that this could affect so deeply and for so long.

Down this 1983 road, we did donuts and rosies and we played chicken.  I drove the old B John Deere with cultivator attached.  I rode atop hay racks piled high in the unforgiving summer heat.  In the fields beside, I ploughed with a terrible case of pink eye.  I walked for hours with my corn knife, chopping down amazon height sunflowers which bore amazon size grasshoppers.  I watched my brother race and flip motorcycles and snowmobiles and me on the toboggan.  Concussions for everyone and often.  My dreams did not include a life without my brother.

Down this 1980 road, my brother flipped the truck on a gravel row left by the maintainer.  Yet another concussion, blood running down his face, he didn’t know where he was or what happened. 

Down this 1981 road, my step mom pulled out in front of my high school Accounting teacher, Mrs. Andresen.  She too incurred a concussion from the shot gun that fell out of the rack, hitting her on the back of the head.  My two year old step brother, wedged on the floor after impact.

Down this 1981 road, my step sister walked with suitcase and teddy bear, age 10, running away.

Down this 1985 road, in darkness of midnight, I sought refuge in the Geppart’s house, using their phone to call Patty to please pick me up.  Aged 16, I was told to “Get the fuck out!”  No purse.  No keys. 

Down this 1979 road, my mother drove away in her small brown car, an independent example.

Down this 1982 road, my brother fled like the Duke Brothers, evading police pursuit.  Taking the ditch in lieu of the barricade, they drew and shot upon him.  With headlights out, he coasted down the driveway and crawled into bed. 

Down this 1982 road, on my first solo pursuit, I drove to my Steinfurth cousin’s farm.  Colliding with a rendering truck along the way, falling sideways, totaling the pick-up, and breaking my nose. 

Down this 1981 road, came fire trucks and neighbors both helpful and nosy when our barn burned down in Junior High.  So came the school bus that dropped me off as I gasped at the billowing smoke and a man from Crooks stopped his truck to smirkingly inform me, “I guess you won’t be milking the cows tonight.”

Down this 2009 road, I tried to erase it all when I ignorantly invited the world to witness my wedding amidst the alfalfa blooms under my brothers Cottonwood tree. 

Down this 2012 road, my husband and I in our rental car drove to support his third farm sale where he angrily expressed his lifelong disappointment in me.

Down this 1982 road, came more fire trucks and the ambulance that took my brother away.  But not before I was told to go pack a bag so I could stay at my Uncle Harlan’s that night.  Going up the stairs past that bedroom door where my Uncle stood with my Dad inside and my brother’s bare foot and leg in my direct sight.  Lying off the side of the bed in some strange way.

Down this 1975 road, my father drove us – my mother, my brother, our three dogs and me.  Turning down the drive, bragging and dreaming, selling us on this Johnson family farm where we would live and grow and cultivate a gorgeous family life. 

Down this 1975 road, my mother drove us, my brother and me, shotgun shots ringing in our ears.  Reloading the gun for each and every one, he shot those dogs and their puppies.  He shot each and every one.  Except for Pirate, the girl dog that got away down this road, like my 1979 mom and like 1987 me. 

07/14/2015 @ 2:24PM

me.

Smell Memory: Burnt Toast and Musty Old Farm Houses

Patience's Hazel Art
(Hazel Grayson at 104 years old - 2004)

Smell Memory.  What is yours like?  Mine is haunting in the most beautiful way.

I walked into my kitchen just now to wash my breakfast dishes and change a load of laundry.  I was pondering if there is any gardening that I can go outside to do this beautiful summer day.  Lost in a mental list of productivity options, I was about three feet from the sink when a smell memory hit me and hit me hard.  I suddenly walked into a cloud of what my Grandma Grayson's kitchen used to smell like - a combination of old musty farm house and burnt toast.  I was taken.  I stopped abruptly, doubting what I was smelling.  Grabbing a hold of the counter as though I were going to lose my balance from surprise, I inhaled deeply as the smell memory grew stronger.  Eyes closed, the vision of my Grandmother became prominent standing in the kitchen of her old farm house (not the newly built modern house that my Grandfather gifted her in her late 80's).  Her cotton dress and apron, bowed legs from childhood illness, standing at the kitchen sink laughing as she washed the breakfast dishes.  I opened my eyes for a brief moment to set my own breakfast dishes down in my sink.  The smell still overwhelmingly present, I strong cry took me over.  I closed my eyes and deeply inhaled again as the smell memory faded.

I don't know if my own kitchen tends to smell like old musty farm house.  It is very possible that is smells like burnt toast - a lifelong way of living that I need to re-address very soon.  I won't linger too long as to why this happened, but I am thankful for it.

We can easily look at a photo and say, "Oh yeah!  I remember that!"  Or, we can recollect with a friend or a relative about a shared memory and our own personal version of the story.  We can touch a doll or a blanket or just about anything and feel the sensory touch of something that has always felt that way.  But smell is more elusive.  Yes, I can say, "This peach pie tastes just like Grandma used to make!"  The pie could even smell the same.  But to suddenly be hit with a smell that is unlikely to exist in your present environment...a smell that is a combination of elements from a time past...well that is something else altogether.

Has this happened to you?

My mother used to have this wooden cabinet with glass doors that she kept as a sort of shrine to my brother who passed in his teens.  It held his favorite Dallas Cowboys t-shirt, his left-handed baseball mitt, trophies, a picture of him in little league, candles and more.  If you opened the cabinet, you would be overwhelmed at the intimate smell of the items inside, most notably the candles.  But every once in a blue moon, on a different floor of the house or in a far away room, that combination of smells would waft under your nose.  Gripping you, stopping you in yours tracks, forcing you to close your eyes and wonder.  These smells were mysteriously free of their entombed moment in time - back in 1982.

Smells from my Grandma Hazel Grayson have haunted me before.  In fact, I cannot think of any smells relative to others that have ever grabbed me like that.  Mediums would tell you that it represents that individual's spirit is visiting you at that exact moment in time and that it is "with you", watching over you and protecting you.  Whereas, neuroscientists would indicate that this is olfactory memory, where one's amygdala specifically deals with smell memory.  

Whatever the case may be, I wonder why it doesn't happen for me with smells from anyone else.  Why only Hazel?  Why not my brother's smells to me like they do to my mother?  It both examples, the smell is not negative but, it seems, a warm reminder of a loved one passed.  For me specifically, a time and a place, an age and an environment - a person who greatly nurtured me.  

While it brought me tears, my memory of Grandma Hazel this morning warmed me.  It gave me her being again if only for a brief moment.  It brought me her love and her part in my daily morning traditions.  I was happy to see her again from my 7-year-old height, peering into the kitchen while standing in the living room entry.  With the morning sun shining in above her kitchen sink, she was everything I remembered and more.  

I was me.

Kicked, spattered, spanked

I smiled

Belittled, neglected, abused

I hoped

I was bartender

I was egg collector

I was calf feeder

Still I believed

I was 7

Little Red Riding Hood

Youngest of 3

1 dead

1 dead to be

I was Midwestern

Isolated, perfected, subjected

I cried

Dominated, berated, restricted

I tried

I was me.

Dione 04/24/2013 10:55AM

Back Doors

Grandma Doris and Great-Aunt Lorraine (Colton, South Dakota)

Where I grew up, in the south east area of South Dakota, side doors were most commonly what you used to enter and exit the house. These old farm houses had front doors, side doors and back doors. And, most of these doors were preceded by porch doors.

In my house, we had French double doors in the front - a modification to the recent addition.  There was a back porch door that led to the livingroom, and a side porch door for daily use.  This led directly to the kitchen.  Before you entered the yard or proceded up the front porch steps, you slid your shoes or workboots over the scraper so as to remove any excessive amounts of mud or manure.  Then, you went through the outside porch door to the entry way where you removed your workclothes/coveralls and then tip-toe sprinted to the bathroom for your evening bath before dinner. 

This side door was the one that was used and abused to the point of wear in the paint and wood and a loose door knob.  It didn't matter whose home you were in, there was always a special slam or adjustment that had to be used so that this door didn't blow back open by the heady prairie winds, letting in every fly in the tri-county area. 

I can recall visiting school friends on regular days where we would enter through these types of door just off the kitchen, often times to run into their "old man" sipping his afternoon coffee and having a couple cookies or a slice of cake before heading back out to his fieldwork and evening chores.  There he would sit quietly, hat messed hair strewn about above him with dust settled on his sunburnt face except where his hat had been.  And there was always a hat.  In fact, for every single friend and cousin's home that I can recall at this moment, we entered through that side porch kitchen door. 

The actual backdoor was rarely used, if ever.  Mostly it was hidden from visiters by the grove of trees that surrounded the house.  From the inside, this door was also hidden by a stack of boxes, an old piano, a couch, a summer bed.  I think we used our backdoor for my wedding two years ago, but never for the 13 years I lived on that farm. 

My Grandma Hazel's backdoor was an entry to her basement, which had another door right there leading to the livingroom.  I recall using that door once and likely only out of curiousity.  Never ever do I remember that door being used for any other circumstance.

To the east of us, Old Erwin Peterson lived in the house on his family's bicentennial homestead.  This was quite a large and impressive home, painted yellow with white trim.  Up the walkway, past the creaky old windmill, you could enter either via decending the steps to the basement door or by climbing the steps to his side porch door.  Never ever ever did he use the front door.

To the north of us, Elmont Baker and his wife always used the side door.  Again, never ever ever the back door or the front door.

On holidays, which always warranted a family gathering, no matter the house, the front door was cleared, dusted and used.  Cob webs wiped away, and a good shove at the old door and Grandmas, Grandpas, Uncles, Aunts and Cousins were welcomed through that door.  At my Grandma Hazel's, this door was on the front porch, in both the old farm house and the new house Grandpa built her in her 90's.  For our house it was French doors with all the menfolk practically lifting Grandma up those steps as she smiled and laughed, jell-o and pie in her hands, net over her freshly curled hair.

The end of those French double doors came when a large piece of sheet metal flew through those doors, practically killing my Dad and preventing him from seeking shelter in his basement, when the tornado came through his farm in 2003.  Most of our doors were spared that day, all except those of the other 11 buildings on his property that the tornado took that day.  After the farm was rebuilt, Dad remodeled the house.  The French doors had to go.  But he built a new front door and a new side door and new back door.

Again, what all these side doors had in common was a direct entrance to the kitchen.  There you were invited to join in morning or afternoon coffee.  There amidst the smells of the days baking or lunches frying and the aroma (rarely faint) of the cattle or pig yard, there you would get a tasty homemade treat and would be privy to recent prices in corn, cattle and hogs and the expected weather.

What I remember best about these doors though were the back doors and side doors that I used to knock on when I lived in Colton, South Dakota for one year, in 1979.  My brother and I lived there with my Mom while my parents pursued a divorce.  And, as I didn't have many friends there yet, I would wander and explore.  And whats cool about these tiny midwestern towns is the lack of fences surrounding their homes.  Lawn ran into lawn and plenty of kids would cut through the block on their way to school or the park or a friends or Grandma's house.  During that summer, with my Mom at work and my brother off tormenting someone else, I would walk between these houses and greet the dogs and cats and birds and butterflies and flowers. 

One time in particular I recall talking to an elderly man in his driveway as he worked on a vintage car.  He seemed happy for the conversation and invited me in for afternoon coffee.  Entering through the back door, we went directly to the kitchen table where his wife served us cookies, cake, coffee for him and juice for me.  She joined us and our conversation.  But I remember asking him about the tatoos on his arms.  There was an anchor and a pin-up girl.  He told me about how he got these when he was a very young man in the navy.  Then he showed me how he could make the girl dance by flexing his muscles.  I was in awe and utter sugar-enhanced bliss.  After coffee break, I thanked them and excused myself to return often times after that for afternoon coffee with my new friends.

In the same town, there lived an elderly woman all alone in a decrepid old home that was grey from years of wear and lack of refresher paint.  I was introduced to her by my one new girlfriend that summer who was actually my age, Angie Erickson.  This frail little lady welcomed us in through the side door and, without hesitation, whipped us up some rootbeer floats.  All three of us sat there laughing and talking with icecream float mustaches, slurping away.  I definitely called upon her again, even without Angie.

All those doors.  Basic wooden side doors.  Back doors and front doors with elaborate etching and scrolling that framed beautiful old circular glass.  As I now type-up my Grandmother Doris's memoir, I wonder how many of those people knew who I was and who my parents and grandparents were.  Likely they were even friends or relatives, but what we did was enjoy the time, enjoy the communion of friends and share in the moment that simply was.  Perhaps that is why I take such a particular pride in inviting people to convene for coffee at my own diningroom table right next to the kitchen.



Wednesday is Today

The rain drove down at an angle, solid.  It has been pouring now for three days.  Bunny's ears were gone, no longer peaked in their playful alert way.  Detached from years of companionship.  Years of bringing Bunny along by hanging onto his ears.  Then that one painful moment of tearful tug-a-war induced by my brother.  The ears came off but Bunny was loved just the same.  Injured, yet loved.  Bunny was my guy.  Pink, green, yellow...all the colors of Easter drenched in finality.  The rebirth squandered, disregarded, tossed out.  As special as Sam Snake, who went early.  Went first. 

There bunny was.  Rain water atop kerosene.  Dirty.  Oily.  Abandoned.  Nose deep in the soot encrusted burn barrel.  An old barn-red barrel about 80 gallons large.  Solitary, it sits center yard under the sole yard light.  One light.  One light pole.  A singular patch of grass.  Barrel and Bunny.  Abandoned bunny.  Here since Sunday.  Wednesday is today. 

Sunday brought us to see my Grandma.  With Mommy half across the universe, I found comfort in Grandma.  Never cross.  Always shining happy and laughing.  A laugh that emanates through the years.  The smells of her and her kitchen haunt as they waft in smell memory.  A day spent with her, shared lovingly with my brother and resentfully with my step-siblings.  Often times we are forced to share our Grandmother Love with them.  Step-mom placed the love scale on the table and the mound of my Grandma's love was set in the tray, heaping and oozing over the sides.  It was weighed, measured.  Sliced and divied up.  With them.  They who spent time with their Grandparents without us.  They who got to see their Father every other weekend.  We who saw our Mom maybe twice a year now.

After a beautiful Sunday with Grandma, we come home in time for evening chores.  As Grandpa descends the driveway into the barnyard, he turns the circle around the pole.  Dad and Step-Mom are west of the house, just outside the porch door.  Burn barrel aflame, dolls crying, baby cribs shattered, children's games, stuffed animals distraught, various toys waiting their turn for the incinerator.  Sitting in line.  Sullen.  Defeated.  Neglected.  Abandoned.  In chains.

In this overcrowded house, this blended home make-up, there are rules.  Rules that must be abided by.  Disregarding rules can lead to the cruelest of punishment.  First, the outraged enforcer - an absolute anger-filled verbally abusive rampage of a temper tantrum, followed by a momentary pause, a deep breath, a rearing of the gargantuan hand and finished with the hit.  The shove.  The "Goddammit kid get your head outta your fucking ass before I pull it out for you!"  The "What the fuck were you thinking?!"  The "You dumb ass!" 

Younger years brought pants down, little bare bottomed girl laid sunny side up over his lap.  Open handed brute force spankings from 5-inch-wide hands.  Fingers like polish sausages.  Older years brought cowboys booted kicks to the ass while being escorted across the lawn to finish something I had forgotten to do from my daily list.  Brother endured worse.  Step-sister remained untouched.  Step-brother defenseless against the rage.  Two years old, carried down the stairs with a softened alarmed beast, the minute boy bore a bruised eye, rivers of tears and a pathetic summation, "I think we may have gotten a little carried away.  But we made up and we are buddies now." 

But today.  Today is Wednesday.  And Bunny gazes sullenly back at me.  Bunny says, "Don't cry.  You will be ok.  Your brother will protect you.  Don't worry about me.  Don't cry."  I stroke his cheek with my cow-feed encrusted cow-hide work gloves.

The simplest of rules meant that your bed had to be made every morning.  That there needed to be a clean floor in your bedroom.  The rules didn't account for your two-year-old step-brother who might be intrigued by your items, while you are at school, and leave them on the floor.

Bunny was last in line.  Once descended into the death chamber, Bunny was doused and lit aflame.  But the sprinkles turned into drops of rain falling on Bunny's face and ears if nothing else but to grant us a last good-bye.  But not a good-bye like this.  Not three days of torturous detainment.  From Sunday nights flames to thunderous rain.  Rain for three days.  Three days of waking to see Bunny sitting in the barrel. Three days of Bunny in the barrel when I get home from school, put on my coveralls and bring out the house trash to add to his grave.  Three days of walking around him, crying with him, talking to him, plotting to save him.  Three tedious days. 

Day four brought little rain and enough sunlight for the old man to give it another go.  Another gasoline drench and a toss of the match and WHOOSH!  Bunny is aflame.  Neglected.  Abandoned.  Abused.  Alone.  Aflame.