Aunt Shirley Was There

Thanks to Carolyn Bennion for producing this photo album in memory of Aunt Shirley. It's fun to remember.

Should we train future presidential candidates?

It's going to be a tiresome campaign season, so something a little off-the-wall may be in order. Frank J. has an interesting idea for training future presidents.

The Day After the Anniversary

It was good to see Senator Obama and Senator McCain together, taking time out from politics on the anniversary of that day. We all remember where we were when we heard the first confusing news. Let's not start mis-remembering 9/11.

Jim Geraghty talks about the little comment that made him choke up. Here are remembrances by Michelle Catalano and Jazz Shaw .

Richard Fernandez, an Australian, remembers 9/11 in a somewhat cryptic post. He's one of the first generation of philosophical/political bloggers, many of whom took pen names or, more accurately, "blog names". It took some doing to find out who these bloggers were. The idea was to focus on the topcs under discussion rather than on the people presenting their thoughts. Some of these bloggers took famous names from antiquity - Cicero, Marcus Fabius, etc. Others took mysterious names like XLRQ. Richard's blog name was "Wretchard the Cat", later shortened to "Wretchard". His background is Filipino, and he sometimes blogs about the slums of Manila (unbelievably poor, compared to our slums), sometimes about Australia or other countries but often about the USA. When he moved Belmont Club to Pajamas Media (a confederation of bloggers), he started blogging under his own name.

This post elicits thoughtful or touching comments by some of the interesting people who regularly conversed with each other in Wretchard's "comments" section at the old Belmont Club, plus the usual couple of cranks.

Limerick about Limericks

From Jay Nordlinger, National Review:

There once was a poet named Todd
Whose meter was seriously flawed.
His limericks would tend
To come to an end
Suddenly.

Cautionary quotes

From The Anchoress, in reference to socialized medicine, but much more widely applicable:

"American presidents may peacefully surrender their power, but bureaucrats never do."



Related quote from the comments, attribution fuzzy:

"If you think health care is expensive now, just wait til it's free."


Especially if you consider both health costs and fiscal costs. Socialized medicine in many countries is now degrading due to the accumulated weight of years of bureaucracy, among other things. Some countries, such as the UK and Canada, seem to do especially poorly now with chronic medical conditions. There is a lottery in one Canadian town for appointments to see the General Practitioner.

Good comments on the linked posts.

Aunt Shirley

On September 3, my Aunt Shirley, one of my father's little sisters, passed away. I remember her as a doting mother who was also interested in her children's cousins. She was very sociable - like both of her parents. She was a little on the fussy side - sort of like her mother and my father. She probably could have used a little more self-confidence - sort of like me.

Uncle Bill and Aunt Shirley were always taking Bill Jr., Gary and Janet on camping trips to places which were further away from home than the day-trips to the mountains which our family often took. Shirley never seemed quite like the "camping type" to me. Maybe I was projecting some of Dad's characteristics onto her. She seemed enthusiastic when talking about their trips.

Shirley loved to go to meetings of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers with Aunt Beverly. Sometimes they got my Mom involved, too. Shirley was on the Cookbook Committee. When David and I got married, she gave us one of my favorite presents, a copy of the cookbook she had helped to produce, with a personal note. I remember Aunt Beverly's enthusiastic endorsement of the cookbook.

It's one of those volunteer group efforts filled with wonderful surprises. Many of the recipes are pricelessly delicious. Others sound a little scary - like "Chocolate Goo-Goos" - containing both sourdough starter and marshmallows. I saw one recipe for doughnuts in which the contributor seems to have left out the flour. There are pioneer poems and stories, like "When Grandma Was Ready for Winter". And there are many historically interesting recipes. Older historical recipes include those from real pioneers. Some would be difficult to replicate now. Some you would not want to replicate. Others are worth keeping in mind for times we may lack modern conveniences. More recent recipes of historical interest to me are a few from the middle decades of the 20th century (when food manufacturers were promoting new ways to use processed foods) which could have been featured in James Lileks' "The Gallery of Regrettable Foods".

There are useful and humorous entries - like "Recipe for a Happy Day" and "How to Cook a Husband". The latter is in "Main Dishes". In part, it advises wives, "If he sputters, do not be anxious, for some husbands do this until they are quite done. Add a little sugar in the form of what confectioners call kisses, but use no pepper or vinegar on any account. Season to taste with spices, good humor and gaiety. Avoid sharpness when testing him for tenderness."

Looking through the cookbook today, I saw five recipes from Aunt Shirley, three from Aunt Beverly and one from Mom, for Cherry Bars, which I don't remember her ever making. It was sweet for the family to list Mom, Shirley's sister-in-law, as a survivor in the obituary.

We're going to miss Aunt Shirley, like we miss her bolder sister, Beverly. Our hearts are with Aunt Shirley's remaining siblings, her children and her grandchildren today.

Below are two recipes from Aunt Shirley's book. One is for her own Date Nut Bread, which I remember fondly from Christmases past and which Mom especially looked forward to each year. The other one is for Aunt Beverly's Banana Bread. I added a few details to both for the sometimes inexperienced bakers of a new generation.

DATE NUT BREAD - Shirley Lyells

1 tsp. baking soda
1 cup boiling water
1 cup pitted dates, cut up
3/4 cup raisins
2 Tbsp. soft butter or margarine
1 cup sugar (or less)
1 tsp. vanilla
1 egg
1 1/2 cups sifted flour
3/4 cup chopped pecans

Pour soda and boiling water over dates and raisins. Cream butter and sugar, then add vanilla and egg. Beat well, add flour and mix lightly. Pour in fruit mixture, water and nuts; mix. Grease the bottom of a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan or grease and line the bottom with waxed paper. Scrape dough into the pan, smooth the top and bake in a 350 degree oven for 50 to 55 minutes, or until a toothpick stuck deep into the center comes out clean. If dividing dough into smaller pans, shorten baking time.

Cool for 5 minutes, run a knife around the sides of the loaf, shake and remove from pan to cool bread on a wire rack. Cover tightly after completely cool.


BANANA BREAD - Beverly Bennion

Mash 3 bananas and add 1 teaspoon soda and 1 teaspoon baking powder. Set aside.

Cream together:
1/2 cup shortening
1 cup sugar

Beat in two beaten eggs. Stir in just until blended:

2 1/2 cups flour
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup water
1 tsp. vanilla
1 cup nuts
Banana mixture

Grease the bottom of a 9 x 5 inch loaf pan or grease and line the bottom with waxed paper. Scrape dough into the pan, smooth the top and bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 hour, or until the crack in the top of the loaf looks dry and a toothpick stuck deep into the center comes out clean. If dividing dough into smaller pans, shorten baking time.

Cool for 5 minutes, run a knife around the sides of the loaf, shake and remove from pan to cool bread on a wire rack. Cover tightly when completely cool.

Aunt Betty

Last week we learned that David's Aunt Betty had passed away. I didn't know her very well, but David remembers her as a wonderfully kind woman who made a real difference in his life.

He remembers in particular an incident which was very important to him as a young boy. Aunt Betty and Uncle Travis had a farm, and they moved her parents into a little house on their property. David had asked to stay with his grandparents after having had an extraordinarily hard time in first and second grade at home. Partly this was due to his dyslexia, but another part of the problem was teachers who left most of the children in their classes to their own devices while lavishing attention on one precocious little girl. David had not even been taught about the alphabet at an age when most kids are reading.

David had trouble in third grade at the school in Earlimart, too. He was an outsider in a mostly Hispanic classroom. But when Aunt Betty brought cupcakes to school for her own son's birthday, she also brought a big box for David's class, for no special reason. The teacher announced that the cupcakes were from David's aunt. The kids treated him much better after that.

David's Mom and his Aunt Helen dearly miss their sister. We will miss her, too.

Emergency vehicles on our little corner - again

Last night I was leaving to feed Katie Cat while her family was gone. There was a fire truck by our house. Again.

Living on the edge of a small town (in an area once left to black families) is not like living in the city, or even in the middle of town. Not that I didn't ever have any "emergency" situations in Southern California. Once I saw what I thought was a dead man on the landlord's lawn. But he was a dead-drunk teenager. And I had a police helicopter visit once when a guy the police was chasing left his sandals in my flowerpot and said I had invited him into my backyard. The police woke me up to get a statement.

But we still seem to get an unusual number of emegency vehicles out here. There was the brush fire (caused by a transformer explosion and drooping wires) before the houses next door were built. Firetrucks were at our house half the night. And there have been fires plus a smoldering roof a little further away, and several attempts at burning down a tiny abandoned church down the road. The last attempt was successful. Emergency vehicles stage at our house when investigating situations up or down the cross street, or near our fire hydrant in case of a big fire.

Our big old dog Sparky hates emergency vehicles after living with a violent man who had frequent police visits. But he is protective, and used to stand by the fence and bark sternly during services at the little church across the street, in an apparent determination to protect the congregation from their loudly amplified, excited pastor. A few years ago Sparky was sent running from the spot where he protected the congregation. Fire trucks scared brave Sparky into cowering silence as they responded during a Wednesday night service that got a little too spirited. Normally, the dogs all howl at emergency vehicles on nearby roads, headed out of town for the surprisingly frequent incidents which happen in the country: explosions, fires, people acting crazy out by a canal, downed power lines or car crashes (often solo) involving people who get reckless because they feel less restrained than they would in town.

And we seem to get peripherally involved in a lot of police and social services matters. A woman came running to the house one night from way down the street, through the goathead stickers (toritos), in bare feet, to call the police because her son had been beaten up. A mother descending into psychosis wanted to leave her little daughter with us because she thought ghosts were after her. We see kids who look like they are at risk wandering in or near the fields, and sometimes a kid will show up to use the phone. The police once mistakenly believed that I was the woman who threatened a neighbor because she thought there was an affair going on between the neighbor and her husband (after all, the neighbor had picked up the accuser's son for football practice while driving her own nephew and other boys to the practice - proof positive of an affair with the accuser's husband). An absentee landlady came here for help after her property was broken into.

Francisco once brought us a gun he had found in a woodpile, which turned out to have been used in a shooting. We got two detectives casing out the house before four officers responded to my report - they had been looking for that gun. It looked like one of those old pirate guns, but was a sawed-off shotgun with the butt altered to resemble a pistol grip.

Last night, it was just a bad case of dehydration. A woman was taken to the hospital. She's part of the black family next door, and I'm ashamed to say I don't even know how many people live there. I have talked to the woman before, but she seems reserved with me. The husband and wife both talk to David sometimes.

They seem more oriented to socializing with other blacks, though. The black guy up the street who always wears a cowboy hat stopped his truck and went to investigate when he saw the fire truck and ambulance. The older man who tools around in a motorized wheelchair stopped by. too. He told me that "Janice's daughter" had been taken to the hospital, like he expected me to know who "Janice" was. The man in the wheelchair knows us. David helped get the ball rolling on the city's bargain with him to provide him with a livable home in exchange for the title to the property when he's gone (at least, I think that's the deal they made).

But our next-door neighbors haven't introduced themselves to another black woman, our friend Emma, who lives directly across the street from them. Their loss. Seems like "city" behavior to me. Sometimes it helps out here to know who your neighbors are.

Last night was a refreshingly routine emergency. Slowly our neighboorhood is becoming more "citified" and routine-ized. We also don't have a flock of chickens show up on our porch every morning any more. And it's been a long time since there's been a big hog loose in the neighborhood.

Maybe soon, some of those emergency calls for unusual events will be a little further out of town, as new building fills in the wild, semi-natural spots in our neighborhood. Some of the wildness we will miss. And I prefer the type of civil disorder we now get to the type in inner cities that we read about.