Memory in winter
Catchy tunes and comforting blankets
Check in
This is our inward time. We hibernate—maybe not overtly, but it seems natural to pull our energy in. Save the extroversion for summer.
This is our season of quiet. A season for writing. A time to pick at our inner essence and explore more deeply who we are.
A time to remember.
What do we remember? How do we remember? Where is memory?
My memory of clouds, for instance, doesn’t include the ones I saw from my window a few days ago.
But back to memories. Do we welcome them, cherish, treasure, curate them? Or are they too painful, shaming, uncomfortable? I am fortunate. My memories, most of them, are pleasant. Not too vivid. Not sad.
Maybe I’ve forgotten more than I remember. I wouldn’t know, as I’ve forgotten it. Two things happen as we age: we forget things in near time and more sharply remember things, events, emotions in beyond time, long-ago time. Time when we were children and youth.
In my quiet and meditations, I’ve encountered forgotten memories. A few of them were painful because I realize now that I hurt others with my careless actions.
Why memory?
What is most important about memory? That it exists at all. Besides things and events, we remember feelings, both sensations and emotions.
Always remember that memory is fickle. Just ask a spouse, a child or a friend about a distant event. Your memories will differ.
A common misperception is that the aged retreat into their memories. Here at Rose Schnitzer Manor, most residents rest firmly in the present, talking about their day rather than times past.
Non-memory
Some memories I only wish I had. Like standing on Mount Washington in New Hampshire, the highest peak in the east, or the rim of the Grand Canyon. Like all those sweet, ragged streets that climb crazily up hills in little English and European towns. Lovely villages, Welsh or Irish or German or French.
I’ve never been to any of these places.
Nor have I ever been to Scandinavia, yet I have vestigial memories of cavorting with reindeer, wearing boots trimmed with braid and red thread.
The red thread of memory
The image of a red thread comes up again and again in my poetry. I see red threads everywhere. I do redwork embroidery.
My vision of red thread, oddly, often includes burlap. Red threads and burlap. Burlap is rough. You can’t miss the texture. But it’s also loosely woven. Like memories, loosely woven to let the words and impressions through.
Blankets
A good use for excess blankets is to donate them to the homeless. I wish I could bring myself to do that.
But all the blankets I have come with history. The double-bed wool blanket, so used that the satin binding has had to be replaced at least twice, was a wedding present to my parents from the Syracuse relatives. After she divorced my father, my mother had it on her bed for decades, and I inherited it. Now that I sleep in a hospital bed, that blanket is too big. But I can’t part with it.
Two sweet little twin-bed blankets, one red, one brown, also wool, have vestigial tags identifying them as Faribo. That means they were made in Faribault, Minn., which is a French name pronounced “Faribo.” Wish I had known that when we lived in Minneapolis and Bloomington. We pronounced it Fare-i-balt.
Mom bought these blankets in the 1950s, probably for my brothers’ beds. And I do use them. They fit the hospital bed.
And then there are piles of crocheted throws. I can’t possibly use them all. But they were all made by my mother; one huge one in sunset colors for herself, and three others, for my daughters and me. I can’t just give away thing crafted by a dear relative. Can I?
I love some possessions too much.
Old-time candy
The Ferrara Candy Co. is discontinuing production of Fruit Stripe gum as of this month. I remember when the product was introduced in 1960. It had a jingle that you only had to hear once to remember:
Yipes! Stripes! Beech-nut’s got ’em. Yipes! Stripes! In Fruit Stripe gum. Yipes! Stripes! Five different flavors! Get Beech-nut Fruit Stripe gum!
The only remaining products with the Beech-nut name are baby food. The company, which at one time included LifeSavers, split off the candy lines in 1968, and has gone through a number of sales and mergers. The candy brand was owned by Squibb, Nabisco and Hershey before landing at Ferrara. The baby food was owned by Nestlé and Ralston-Purina before becoming part of a Swiss-based concern, the Hero Group.
I just saw a movie where Fruit Stripe gum was a minor plot point. It was “Queenpins,” streaming on Netflix. Oh, oops, I just checked. The gum is Juicy Fruit, not Fruit Stripe. Cheers for the ole copyeditor, me.
Seven Up Bar
I also miss a short-lived candy bar that was like having a box of chocolates. Each milk chocolate Seven Up bar had seven chambers with fillings that varied, including coconut, butterscotch, caramel, buttercream, nougat, fudge, Brazil nut, cherry cream, and orange jelly. I especially miss the orange jelly. It was made by the Pearson Candy Co. and phased out in 1979. Wow, that was a long time ago. It was too expensive to produce, and besides, the soda pop 7Up folks wanted their brand back.
Follow up
Last week, when I wrote about hand warmers, I said I didn’t remember whose was the one that was in my household. One of my brothers says he won a hand warmer as a prize for selling subscriptions when he was a carrier for the Minneapolis paper. That was when we were living in Sioux Falls.
I guess a hand warmer makes a suitable reward in a city with frigid winter temperatures, especially during early morning delivery hours.
He also pointed out that while another brother owned a Lionel train, his was an American Flyer, bought by Mom at a garage sale. “It was a smaller gauge than the Lionel,” he wrote, “but bigger than HO, which I also had.”
My children made do with Brio trains. No ozone there.
Sun and shadow
Groundhog Day is next Friday. The rodent of the hour is Punxsutawney Phil. He resides in Punxsutawney, Penn., which makes provides a natural venue for the snappy “Pennsylvania Polka.” The tune, by Lester Lee and Zeke Manners, was published in 1942.
The Pennsylvania Polka
Strike up the music, the band has begun (Bum bum bum bum) The Pennsylvania Polka Pick out your partner and join in the fun The Pennsylvania Polka It started in Scranton, it’s now number one It’s bound to entertain ya Everybody has a mania To do the polka from Pennsylvania Doncha just love how “entertain ya” and “mania” rhyme with “Pennslyvania”?
A couple of sister acts
The song lends itself to harmony and was an immediate hit for the Andrews Sisters.
Two other sisters, from Scholls, Ore., sang the polka for me when I interviewed them for The Oregonian back in the ’90s. Here’s the lede of my story.
No sooner does Nadine Paukner pull a note out of the air than her sister, Virginia Lees, shoehorns in with the harmony.
Shoulder-to-shoulder, they croon. Their voices chase each other, harmonizing in thirds and fifths. . . .
The mood is the ’40s, those long-ago days when a couple of perky brunettes sang up an a cappella storm. It was an era of big bands and sprightly lyrics, a time when America was filled with can-do attitude.
They toured the country as the Bunnell Sisters before marriage caught up with them in the 1950s.
“The Pennsylvania Polka” is just as perky today. In “The Polka King,” streaming on Netflix, Jack Black, as the real-life Jan Lewan, sings “The Pennsylvania Polka.”
Here it is with Will Glahé on the accordion. Polkas, accordions, a match for the ages.
You can also hear the polka in “Groundhog Day,” which everyone knows is one of the best movies ever. Many people loop the movie, like the movie itself loops life. You will recall that Bill Murray doesn’t get out of the loop of living the same day repeatedly until he’s become a better all-round person. He’s got you, babe. And he knows how to play the piano.
Poem
Long dream
Winter sets in Its claw on my neck Softness and harshness Gray grit and gravel. Memory fails me, Nothing is certain. Oatmeal for breakfast, No sugar, just salt. Rise in the morning To darkness and cold. Magenta sun rising, Crows in the clouds. Never remember, Never get warm. Fat candles, thin ones, Weak winter light. Breath I can see, Winter outstanding, Waiting in snow, Waiting for what? No spring, no not yet. Too soon for rich earth. Too soon for warmth— Spin out the chill. I want to remember, What should I remember? Quilt of the season, Cover my wounds.
Crows on ice
Husband Robert reported that he was watching crows slipping on the ice outside our Main Street (not Wall Street) home. (He lives there, I live at Rose Schnitzer Manor, but I’m going to be moving home in March.)
I’m not in my first-floor apartment at RSM anymore, so I haven’t seen the crows skating, but here’s a video from Next Door* that shows that very thing.
*Sorry, Substack won’t let me embed that video. You’ll have to click the link.
Kudos to the photographer, Thomas Forsyth, for getting that close to the crow. He says he used peanuts to attract it. I have no luck photographing birds. The wheelchair scares them off.
I did get a shot of a murder of crows convening in a winter tree.
Snow with icon
The ice is gone, but on the Portland State University campus, there were little piles of dirty snow to remind us of what had gone before. Here’s a photo of some snow with one of my iconic objects, a fire hydrant. It’s outside the library.
I didn’t crop this photo because I like the composition. It is full of interesting shapes and textures and oblique lines.
Check out
Winter dreaming
Quiet winter days are ideal for meditative activities, like handwork and walking. Consider choosing a word before you begin your activity, and turn it over and over in your mind like a multifaceted gem. It will enrich you.
Need a word? Open a book and point to one, and another, maybe a third. I just did that and landed on “speech,” “degraded” and “individuality.” But you do your word.
Next month
The theme for February is remembering the history of the other. It seems daunting. I hope I am up for that.
The theme for January, you may recall, was no shopping. I’ve nearly made it through. Just two days left! I tried to cheat and order something from Amazon today, and I couldn’t get the checkout to work. So the Universe is looking out for me.
And further . . .
Go well this week. Walk outside, praise the rain, let your wounds heal. If you can, draw or write. Cook something delicious.
And thank you for reading. Your support, the simple act of opening my postings week after week, makes my work worthwhile.
—30—
Thank you, Fran, for another clear view from your window on the world. Remembering! Seems I've been doing that for a long time now. Our seminary teacher in high school attempted to frightening us into submission by saying when we die we will be shown our lives in full cinematic details. Every last sin and transgression. Now I'm wondering if all that I've been remembering is that "movie" of my life. And I ask the Universe, was it all bad. Didn't I ever do anything good? Why do we think this way, Fran? Anyway, thank you for the photo of your mother's beautiful crocheted throw, and the fire hydrant, and the crows.
I have never heard of a Seven Up bar. Fascinating. Lots of beautiful imagery here in your thoughts on memory, Fran. I understand the challenge of discarding things handmade by family. We have that challenge in my family, but more and more things do get let go, it seems. Often the culling, for us, is in stages. Sometimes maybe the one or two made by someone special is enough, allowing us to part with things we might otherwise be keeping only because we feel guilty letting them go.
I love the stories of the cherished pieces you shared.