I REMEMBER...my finger getting stuck in the kitchen table

…getting my finger caught in the tube leg of my parent’s new aluminum/Formica table when I was six. We lived in McAlister, Oklahoma. My mom owned and taught a private kindergarten in our converted garage and my dad was a mailman on the railroad (approx 1953 – the mailmen were on the train in a special postal car and picked up mail along the stops and sorted it as they went along to deliver to the next city down the line).

Like all kids, I had my favorite foods and non-favorite foods. Remembering that this was ‘50’s Oklahoma, some of my favorites were fried catfish with ketchup, ketchup [ketchup went on most everything] and white bread sandwiches [there was only white bread – no choices as I recall), lard and sugar on white bread sandwiches [if you like eating the white stuff –lard and sugar-out of the middle of Oreo cookies – then you would have loved those sandwiches, corn on the cob, fried chicken and hot dogs. There were a multitude of things I didn’t like, as my Mom and Betty Crocker [1953] conspired to provide recipes for such God-Awful dishes like Liver and cream sauce, spinach and vinegar, cottage cheese [ok with lots of sugar and pineapple – but not so much with pepper like my Dad preferred] and of course, the ever popular: lima beans with shredded carrots in lime jello.

It was one of those nights when I was pushing food around in my plate, hoping it would evaporate. [Note: back in the day, kids that didn’t eat their food were told that there were starving kids in China that would love to have it and that you would a) sit there until you finished it or b) go to bed right now and it would still be sitting there when you came back to the table for the next meal]. I almost got out of it once when I suggested that since my Dad was a mailman – why we didn’t just mail the liver and onions to the starving kids in China. Since I hadn’t seen buttermilk (with pepper for my Dad) spew out of an adult’s nose before, I figured I had hit on a solution. It, however, was just a temporary reprieve, until my parents quit laughing and choking. So, there I was one night pushing food around and running my hand around under the brand new, bright yellow, aluminum and Formica dining table my parents had just purchased. [Note: this was when perfectly good imported English oak tables were tossed out to the dump to make way for the sleek new aluminum and Formica furniture – wow – what a wise decision that was] So, finding a little opening in the end of one of the aluminum table tubes, I tried to poke my finger into it. As I had been stirring the cream sauce on the liver with said finger, it slipped right in. Therein was the problem. The finger wouldn’t come out. The more that I struggled with it, the more my finger started to swell making it impossible to remove.

The moment finally arrived when I had to eat or go to my room to await another chance to eat the liver another day, but couldn’t get up. I didn’t want to say why, so I just kept getting deeper in trouble for not getting up. Just as my Dad grabbed me by the arm to jerk me up from the table, I was forced to scream out “My finger's caught in the table”. My Mom and Dad tried squeezing, pulling, 3-in-1 oil (like WD-40), butter, lard, and prayer. Nothing worked. The more we struggled, the more my finger swelled hurt, and the louder I cried. Eventually, my parents had no choice, but to call the fire department. A big red fire engine with lights flashing arrived, attracting all the neighbors. After the firemen quit laughing, they proceeded to try all the firemen tricks, but to no avail. After much discussion, it was decided (over my Mom’s protests) to use a hacksaw and cut the leg off the table. At the time, I thought my Mom’s anguish and protests were for her fear of me getting my finger cut off, but I suspect now that it was truly in anguish over losing her brand new modern aluminum table to a hacksaw.

So, they cut the leg off my Mom’s new table and threw the junked remains into the backyard. They jammed my hand with the six inch aluminum pipe stuck to it into a bucket full of ice for a half hour and voilla’: my finger popped right out. I got to ride on the fire engine with all my friends and was the hero of the neighborhood. My mom eventually retrieved another oak table and mourned the lost “modern” updated model for quite a long time, and oddly enough, never fixed liver and onions again. Our family did, however, endure many more “jello with mixed vegetables” dishes. I have yet to see a Formica/Aluminum table on Antiques Road Show.

I REMEMBER- Grandma Grace Stories Part 1

...talking to my Mom [Grace Margaret Chiles (Whitlock) Welton] after her first emergency trip to the hospital emergency room when she had serious problems breathing. She called it her "Dress Rehearsal" and how lucky she was to have the opportunity to focus on the last part of her life and attend to the business of getting things in order. She still didn't get every thing done, but got pretty close. She had a chance to say how much she loved the important people in her life and did a pretty fair job of tying up loose ends and categorizing things for Sharon (my sister) and me to handle after she was gone. Things were pretty well organized and easy to find ( after many, many weekends of closet and garage cleaning with help from her children) and she had lots of directions written down for us to follow (teachers are like that you know)....kind of like leaving lesson plans and homework for us. She considered herself blessed with the opportunity to have time between the "dress rehearsal" and the "final show". Not everyone gets that precious gift of time. So many people pass away "before their time" and leave unfinished business and unrequited relationships...people they never got around to saying "I love you" to and "I appreciated knowing you", etc.

I find myself going through a similar phase now. I shrugged off being diagnosed with Glaucoma a few years back. Later, I discovered I had heart valve issues and having to start a permanent regimen of pills to keep the a-fib in check was just a minor inconvenience (other than having to give up caffeine). My outlook was that my body parts warranties were just expiring along with my receding hairline and defective hearing and found it somewhat humorous, but it didn't slow me down. After this latest bout with Tonsil Cancer, I am somewhat close to admitting I just might be in the last portion of my turn on earth. Not morose, just insightful observation. I fully expect to live another 20 plus healthy years. I hope so, as I have a lot of loose ends to clean up.

I had far too much fun for one person to experience the first 3/4 of my life and although there are some regrets, I wouldn't trade much away for the fantastic experiences I have had. I went everywhere, did everything (some things more than twice), and accumulated a lot of "stuff" along with my memories and stories. I was in the "acquisition" mode for most of my life. I think mostly it was the satisfaction of "acquiring" vs. real need that has caused my bulge in excess things....like cook books I loved when I bought them, but never read beyond one or two recipes. I was probably in one of my "blonde" moments and succumbed to the fact that it was pretty and shiny with a delicious looking cover. I am now considering selling-giving away all my cookbooks and getting a small laptop to keep in the kitchen and tune it into the food network or cooking .com.

I am consolidating all my photos and slides to jpgs and becoming a good philanthropist with Goodwill. I am tossing my slides, creating photo and cd albums for my kids and of course, this Blog - living forever on the internet and perhaps even in print. This Blog is a big part of my commitment to divest myself of stuff I can't take with me. I am hoping for a long experience of enjoying the "Zen" portion of my life...such as a single orchid and 3 stones vs crates of crap in my closets.

I found a box of my mom's things last weekend. In it was my mom's pre-internet version of the "Blog". She was a writer. Not much ever got written down, but when she did, it was beautiful and touched your heart. She had so much to share ( and used her turn to teach), but the budding writer never burst forth as she had imagined.

I found two of her spiral notebooks in a box. The first one said " Grandma Stories! It was a journal she wrote to chronicle her life stories for the grandkids (six at the time - pre Sarah Grace Loeffler Welton). There was about a half a page of some story about being a little girl on her daddy's farm. I think she was going to tell the story about her pet raccoon and the sugar cube her older brothers gave it to wash before eating. I loved that story, and although I loved my uncles, I was upset with the way they teased her pet raccoon.

I am not sure though, as the story stopped in mid sentence. She was probably interrupted or distracted by someone selling Girl Scout cookies at the front door; the notebook was put down somewhere in her "office" and never found again until last weekend. I chuckled and picked up the second notebook. It too was a spiral 8 1/2" by 11" and almost identical to the first. This one also said "Grandma Stories" on the cover. She must have given up finding the first one and just started over.

This time, she had written a two page prologue about who, what, when, where, why, and how she was going to accomplish this wonderful gift of her life's experiences. The next page was a cover page that stated in big colorful bold marker pen..."Grandma's Stories". The next 95 pages were blank.

I am now committed to writing my "Robert Welton Remembers Blog" as regularly as I can, with the time I have left (twenty years just about do it if I write fast and stick to it). I have already gotten past my "prologue".