Easter Bloomers

The first story I ever published in an anthology, "Easter Bloomers," appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Celebrating Brothers and Sisters. We're pictured here in our Easter finery, just about to head down the hill for the Friends Church in Scotts Mills, Oregon, where my brother may or may not bring shame upon the family!

EASTER BLOOMERS
By Terri Elders

From my sixth birthday the summer of 1943 when Mama confided to my older sister, Patti, and me that there was a baby on the way, I knew it would be a boy. Despite Grandpa’s teasing that I’d soon have a baby sister, I had faith. I fully intended to remain the official Youngest Daughter for life, though I was perfectly willing to play the dual role of Big Sister.

So when Joel was born on September 30, I was not surprised. But when he arrived home from the hospital, I was somewhat disappointed. A new first-grader, my favorite activity was playing school. I had been counting on this new family addition to join me and my dolls in my makeshift schoolroom. Baby Joel couldn’t even sit up, let alone hold a pencil in his tiny fist. Mama comforted me though by painting a rosy picture of the future, when Joel indeed would become my attentive pupil.

So I bided my time, helping bathe and diaper him, joining Mama in singing Tura-Lura-Lural to him at bedtime, admiring him when he finally could eat a peanut butter sandwich by himself. I waited for him to walk. I waited for him to talk. And finally at the age of three, he began to join in playschool sessions.

But sometimes Joel didn’t seem to take his lessons seriously, so as his teacher I would inform him sternly that while the dolls were earning A’s, he’d be lucky to get a C. “It’s C, A, T,” I would pronounce, pushing back my bangs in exasperation. “T, A, C,” Joel would spell back, and then giggle and clap his hands. “Better than the dolls, huh?” I would throw up my hands in disgust.

Joel was equally cheerful in his Sunday School class, and talented, as well, particularly excelling at coloring Bible story pictures. Then one Sunday as Easter neared, I overheard his teacher telling Mama that Joel would have the first line to recite in the group’s recitation of a holiday poem. His opening line would be, “Easter lilies blooming remind us of the day.” The other preschoolers would in turn complete the additional three lines of the quatrain.

At dinner that night I confided my fear that Joel wouldn’t get the line straight. That’s when Grandpa promised to help coach, which immediately alarmed me. That perennial tease recently had turned his attentions to my innocent brother. Spaghetti, Grandpa claimed, was made from the worms that inhabited the garden. Joel no longer ate pasta. Grizzly bears roamed the hills above our home and feasted on wild blackberries. Joel no longer helped pick berries.

And the first line of the Easter poem, I heard him assuring Joel, really was “Easter bloomers waving.”

Determined that Joel would not disgrace the family by garbling his line, I set up a counterattack. As soon as I memorized my own Easter poem for the service, I began drilling Joel. “It’s Easter lilies blooming,” I would insist. Sometimes he would get it straight and sometimes he would give me Grandpa’s version. I decided to call upon divine reinforcement. “Remember,” I would threaten, “If you don’t get this right, Jesus will be disappointed.”

When we awoke that Easter morning our baskets were already at the foot of the bed. I remember savoring first the sweet chewy yellow marshmallow Peeps chicks. As I got dressed, I downed a rainbow-hued hard-boiled egg, chewed a stick or two of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit, and gazed several times into the innards of my chocolate diorama egg. I counted my jelly beans, and offered to trade Patti for the black ones, my favorite. From time to time I would glance nervously at Joel, while Mama adjusted the collar of his sailor suit.

Then we went to church. Patti was the first of our family to perform, her alto soaring on a solo interval during the choir’s rendition of The Old Rugged Cross. I was next, reciting my poem, and then taking a seat in the front row to watch as Joel’s preschool class marched on stage. The congregation chuckled as the toddlers jostled one another to get into line.

Finally, Joel stepped forward confidently. “Easter,” he announced, and then paused. His eyes caught mine, and then flickered left towards Grandpa near the end of the pew. “Easter,” he began again. I held my breath. “Lilies,” he enunciated clearly. “Blooming,” he continued. “Remind us of the day.” He grinned his jack-o-lantern grin. I beamed back. The next child stepped forward.

Grandpa grumbled a bit on the way home, but I held Joel’s hand and told him he would be getting an A on his next report card. And a gold star, too. Then I leaned over and whispered that I knew that Jesus was pleased.

“Did I do better than the dolls?” he asked. “Oh, yes,” I said. “That’s better than anybody in my class.”

Even now Joel still chides me that I’m the overachiever, the “doer,” the academic one in the family, always busy trying to teach, to mentor, to influence. That’s certainly true. But what he overlooks is that as my first pupil, he indeed proved to be my teacher, teaching me the delights of watching somebody learn and succeed. And teaching me to persist and persevere. And teaching me to appreciate the efficacy of the subtle threat.

Wine Wherever On the Way

Until I married my late husband, Ken Wilson, I'd always figured wine came in three varieties, red, white and dessert. Ken knew wine, though, and impressed me on our first date, as we toured some of the wineries of Napa, St. Helena and Calistoga.

Now I'm learning more about grapes, vineyards and varietals as I'm editing the new Wine Wherever series for Ken and Dahlynn McKowen. The first book in the series will be published shortly...I can hardly wait.

The McKowens previously published The Wine Oh! Guide to California's Sierra Foothills. When I visited with them in Orangedale, CA, last November, they gave me a gift of a bottle of Findleton Estate and Winery's 2007 Zinfandel. This is one of the wineries they had visited in the course of researching the book.

I'd been saving it for a special occasion. That occasion finally turned up last night, a wine tasting party, hosted by a Colville home winemaker for the local branch of American Association of University Women. After an evening of sampling a wide range of reds, we opened the Zinfandel, and for me it was love at first sip. Though the McKowen's guide says Findleton's featured wine is an estate-grown Pinot Noir, if I ever get to Placerville, CA, again, I'd buy a case of this Zinfandel. Even an uneducated palate such as mine recognizes excellence!

Visit the home page for Wine Wherever at: http://publishingsyndicate.com/wine_wherever/wine_wherever_home.html

Wine Wherever features iPhone Apps, and is on Facebook and Twitter. Here's the link to befriend on Facebook: www.Facebook.com/WineWherever

Libraries: The Medicine of the Soul

Today, April 12, is Library Snapshot Day at thousands of libraries across America. Since the Libraries of Stevens County will be participating in this sharing of a glimpse of a day in the life of our libraries, I decided to drop in to the Chewelah branch, which maintains a free magazine exchange rack. Because I'm a magazine junkie and subscribe to a dozen publications, I took a hefty stack to contribute, accumulated over the past few months.

Libraries today will be accumulating statistics on how they serve their communities. They'll be tabulating how many patrons walk through the door, numbers of reference queries, numbers of people using computers, numbers of books transferred from one library to another in a system such as our county maintains, and routine activities such as holds placed, renewals, items cataloged, and books reshelved. They''ll also offer patrons comment sheets.

I visit my Colville branch at least once a week. This week I stopped by to pick up a hold, and will be returning Thursday to facilitate a discussion of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's Infidel for the Colville book group. Next month I'll even be doing a presentation on writing for anthologies.

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need." ~Cicero

Up and Coming

• The Cambridge Summer Shakespeare Festival has finally posted its 2011 schedule, and I'm choosing A Midsummer Night's Dream and Much Ado About Nothing. After all the classes on kings, empires and warfare, I'll be ready for comedy!
• I received a phone call last night from an editor for the "black and white" anthology series published by Outrider Press, and learned "Once in a Lifetime" is a finalist for this year's book, “A Bird in the Hand: Risk and Flight.”
• It's going to be sunny all day today, first bona fide springlike day so far this year, so I'm putting off press releases and emails for community obligations until tomorrow, in favor of trimming some front yard bushes and trotting Natty around the Loop.
  
• And while I'm walking, I'm hoping my long delayed story about Mama's brown betty desserts will finally take form so that at long last I can write it!
  

Chickery Chick... Cha La, Cha La (Maybe)

My story about my grandmother's funeral...a harrowing experience for me when I was fifteen, is a finalist to appear in Chicken Soup for the Soul: Just for Teenagers. Just writing "Pansies, Painted Ladies and Pink Polka Dots" made me remember how we can honor our loved ones and memorialize them, from planting pansies in their honor to writing stories that commemorate them. I'm so grateful that Chicken Soup has chosen to publish stories about more friends and relatives than I can shake a stick at. I'm not putting all my eggs in the Chicken basket, though. Today I dragged out three orphan chicks, brushed up their feathers, polished their beaks, and sent them out to peck on other publishers' doors.

Maybe Tuesday Will be My Good News Day

Since childhood I always have knocked on wood, wished on falling stars, and said “rabbit” for good luck on the first day of each month. And if I make a New Year’s resolution, I rely on my monthly “rabbits” to reinforce my resolve to carry it out.

Two events in my seventh year converged to produce my reliance on this incantation.

The first I still consider my parents’ ultimate act of treachery, a betrayal so profound it kept me in later years from sampling coniglio in Rome or lapin a la cocotte in Paris, not to mention welsh rabbit in Wales, even though I know full well the latter is made with cheese, not Thumper. My perfidious parents, that spring Sunday in 1944, swore that Flopsy and Mopsy, my Easter gifts from a grandmother, had hopped away from their hutch to live happily ever after in Bunnyland. Then Mom served up supper, which included a platter heaped with oddly shaped objects that I’d never seen at our table before.

“It’s fried chicken,” Mama insisted, but that that unfortunate feast nearly turned me into a vegetarian.

The second event was more fortuitous. Shortly after our dining disaster, I read an English storybook where the heroine on the first morning of each month said “rabbit” for courage, stamina and plain good luck. I immediately adopted this routine as my own. I clearly remember regretting that it was too late to “rabbit wish” my beloved bunnies back from Hare Heaven. When I tried to get Mama to tell me if she thought that people actually ate rabbits, or even deer like Bambi, she swiftly averted her eyes and changed the subject.

Later, as an adult, I indoctrinated my son into the “rabbit” practice, and one or two friends, as well. That simple word gives me a bright fresh start each month, a new beginning. I look forward to the first of the month, just as others do to New Year’s Eve.

But my good luck charm doesn't seem to be working well this month. I'd rabbited hard on the first of March, mostly because I was sick of the winter. It started out pretty good...I've noted that the crocus have started to bloom now that the snow's melted in my front yard.

This week, though, since spring officially arrived, I've learned that one of my dearest friends has been diagnosed with cancer, and that another friend not only lost her husband a few months after I lost mine, but recently sustained severe injuries in an automobile accident.

Then today I learned that my toddler granddaughter, Kendra, has been hospitalized again in Casa Grande, AZ. She's had a runny nose, but apparently it lead to a sinus infection. She spiked a fever and had a febrile seizure...always scary even though they usually don't have bad outcomes. But my stepson wrote that he'd said "rabbit" the first of the month because he was looking for a streak of good luck...and didn't get it.

I'm hoping things look up soon for friends and family. I have my own ideas about how spring is supposed to be...and it isn't quite all this.

Spring Fling

• Here's my Natty, looking shaggy, and then looking natty indeed, after his spring bath and lamb cut. Now that the weather's up in the 40s, it was time for him to be shorn. Me, too...I got my haircut yesterday. And though we've still got some snow flurries predicted for this coming week, spring's knocking at the door. Most of the dog yard has thawed, and the cats are shedding their warm winter coats.
  

Just look at the difference in Natty's appearance...I snapped the "before" photo just three days ago, when he was drowning in fur.

I'm setting aside my winter blues and embracing pastels. I'm wearing green on St. Paddy's Day, and whistling up a leprechaun to inspire me to get more writing done, now that I no longer can claim my fingers tremble from subzero temperatures.

Three Firm Beliefs I'm Writing About:

• Some say no good deed goes unpunished...I say untrue.
  
• A steamed persimmon pudding trumps mince pie any old Christmas.
• Mama could have ended the War of the Roses with her pineapple upside-down cake.