Books

A room without books is like a body without a soul. -- Cicero

“Look, Dick! See Jane!”

“See Jane run! Run, Jane, run!”

. . .and so my introduction to reading began in Miss Lorraine Russell’s first grade class. We were students of phonics back in the 1950’s and learned to sound out words. This system of reading instruction catapulted me into a lifetime of reading and loving books. When I was in a second/third grade combination class, Mrs. Ruby Buser, our teacher, would read aloud to her pupils after lunch. To this day I vividly remember the book, Boxcar Children by Gertrude Chandler, the story of Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny Alden who lived in a train boxcar and all their wonderful adventures. I feel like this was the first book I really loved. As I look back I wish I had held on to my collection of Nancy Drew Mystery books that provided me with endless hours of entertainment during my youth.

In the fall of every year my elementary school’s book fair would be held in the library. Each class would take a turn browsing at all the books on display and jotting the prices and titles to take home so we would know which books to ask our parents to buy. Every few weeks we received an order form for Scholastic Books which was a wonderful way of purchasing inexpensive paperback books. All during my elementary years each student subscribed to The Weekly Reader, a type of forerunner to the Washington Post Kid’s Page that children have today. At the beginning of each school year our parents paid a nominal fee so that we could receive this publication once a week all year long.

Many children of my era also subscribed to Highlights, a fun magazine full of stories, puzzles, brain teasers and word finds. That magazine is still published and I admit to looking at a copy when I wait in the lobby of a doctor’s office! I even used those as a resource when I had my first teaching job and had a subscription for my own children for a time.

In my teenage years I began reading and collecting all the gothic romance mysteries written by Victoria Holt, like House of a Thousand Lanterns or Shivering Sands. I have kept all 29 of these paperbacks and wherever I’ve moved, they’ve come right along. I also have a small collection of old books which include an English textbook that belonged to my father, my very first copy of the Bible given to me in 1959, a children’s book from the school book fair when I was in first or second grade, and a volume entitled Personal Beauty and Charm from a set of books my mother had called the Homemaker’s Encyclopedia, published in 1950. Several years ago I began collecting Christmas books and Santa manages to bring me a new volume to add to it just about every year. When my children were little I found a book at the library which they dearly loved entitled Nicholas and Pamela. It was a charming, sweet story about a wee mouse family that lived in a mailbox and their many mousey adventures. I have searched and searched to find a copy of this but to no avail.

I love reading all types of books, both fiction and non-fiction. I took a serious look at my bookshelves so I could find some of my all-time favorites. Among the fiction books are Follow the River by James Alex Thorn, Pocahontas by Susan Donnell, Two from Galilee by Marjorie Holmes and Christie by Catherine Marshall. In the non-fiction category are Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, Fun Facts about the Bible You Never Knew, God’s Little Devotional Book for Women, and 838 Ways to Amuse a Child. There is always some book on my bedside table and my current favorite read is by a new LDS author, Stephenie Meyer, entitled Twilight. It is book one in a series of three about a modern day vampire named Edward Cullen and his human girlfriend. What a suspenseful page turner this is! As soon as my daughter Shellie finishes book two, New Moon, I will have my nose buried in it.

I could wax on and on about my love of books and memorable ones I’ve read through the years. My mother, daughters and I trade books back and forth quite often. We give books as gifts and love a good chat about what we are currently reading. What a blessing to be able to read and to love it! I will borrow my daughter’s philosophy that books are our friends, and thanks to me, our family book shelves are crammed full of dear ones with whom I cannot bear to part.

Our Cape Cod House

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

~Traditional

     The 1950’s was still in the era where neighbors knew neighbors and kids roamed the neighborhood for hours on end whether playing Tag, Mother May I, Red Light, Green Light in someone’s yard, or riding bikes and sleigh riding on the quiet streets. Such was my life as a child when my family moved to Gray’s Subdivision in Oakton VA in 1955. This was even before zip codes came into existence. When we first moved there we had a two-party phone line and our number was DU 5-8932. (DU for Dunkirk)

     The white clapboard house was small with only two bedrooms and one bath for the four of us. The house had been built in 1941 and the original owners paid $4,200. The price then to my parents 14 years later was $12,500 which included a construction fee for raising the roof, adding dormer windows and a stairway. That new space upstairs was to be used to build out bedrooms for my brother and me at a later date. And later it was! By the time I was 12 I finally had my own bedroom in that upstairs area. Somehow my brother and I had survived many years sharing one of the small bedrooms on the main level. Clearly, he had his side and I had mine! Today I can’t imagine two children sharing the tiny closet we had, but we made it work.

      My new bedroom was painted sky blue and my parents bought me a bed, night stand and dresser from Sears, Roebuck & Co. that were finished in white. My bedspread was one that Nanny crocheted. The pattern was white squares with blue roses and green leaves in the middle. A blue sheet underneath always looked very pretty. My Uncle Jimmy was a skilled carpenter and not only helped my dad build the bedroom, but also constructed a study desk for me that was also painted white. I loooved my room and was so happy to have my own space. To this day I can still recollect learning how tape, spackle and sand drywall when the carpenters let me “help”.

     The house was basic in design. To look at the house, it was pretty symmetrical with a yellow front door in the middle and a window on either side. The small kitchen was on the left end of the house and over the years managed to get re-done twice. My mom was happy when the day finally arrived and she got a portable dishwasher. The floors were hardwood except for the kitchen but for most of those years there was wall to wall carpet in the living room and dining room. The first round of carpet was gray wool with green flecks. Sometime in the 1960’s my parents bought new Danish modern furniture for the living room and decided that medium blue sculptured carpet would compliment the décor.

     When the house was first built it had oil heat that was eventually converted to natural gas. There were radiators in each room and they were fun to snuggle up against on chilly nights. Our dog Skipper enjoyed lying beside the one in the living room to take the chill off his old bones.

The basement was unfinished and housed an assortment of junk—lots and lots of junk—like old boards, spare tires, car parts, cleansers, solvents, paints and canning jars. My dad had a workbench at the far end with all his tools and accessories and he spent many hours down there putzing around, fixing or repairing this and that. The small laundry room as at the opposite end and housed the washer and dryer. When it rained really hard, water usually leaked into a corner and we would scoop up the puddle with a dustpan and dump it in an old galvanized bucket. In the summertime my dad ran a dehumidifier and we had to be vigilant about emptying that.

     As kids my brother and I enjoyed playing on the metal swing set. The backyard had a chain link fence which kept Skipper from running off. A beautiful, fragrant climbing red rose adorned a front portion of that fence in the summer. There were several trees in our yard—pine, maple, dogwood, oak, hickory and some messy wild cherry trees that the birds loved to feast off of in the summer. In the front yard there were two bright pink azalea bushes that were gorgeous in the spring. They grew to be quite large and became a distinctive landmark on our corner half acre lot.

     My mother never was particularly fond of their house on the corner of Hibbard Street and Chain Bridge Road. Much to her delight they moved to a larger, newer house in Fairfax in 1990. After living in that house for 35 years, they sold it for approx. $150,000. It is interesting to note that the 2006 Fairfax County tax assessment on that property was $487,610. Wow!

     I recently had the chance to reminisce with both my parents about the old neighborhood. We could easily name all the neighbors we had in “those days” when we knew everyone up and down Hibbard Street, Palmer Drive, Pine Street and Gray Street.

     My childhood was a happy one in that house. I cherish the fond memories I have of holiday gatherings, a game of badminton on a summer night, walking in drifts of snow in the blizzard of ’58 or listening to the radio up in my bedroom. And it was in the dining room of that house over a spaghetti dinner that my boyfriend Ernie nervously announced the news that we wanted to get married.

What Might Have Been

I try not to think about what might have been,

'Cause that was then and we have taken different roads.

We can’t go back again, there’s no use giving in.

And there’s no way to know, what might have been.

- Popular song lyrics

     I’m proud that I am a Virginia Native. Even though my birthplace was Columbia Hospital for Women in Washington, DC my parents lived in an apartment in Arlington VA. Not long after my birth they moved to a single family house, still in Arlington, where my brother attempted to enter this world. When I was four years old, my parents bought a small cape cod farther out in the suburbs in rural Oakton. There I resided until my marriage in 1973 at age 22. Even now when I’m out and about, I sometimes drive through the streets of the old neighborhood where I spent my formative years. There were countless hours circling the block of Hibbard Street, Palmer Drive, Gray Street and Pine Street on my blue bicycle. On dark summer nights the neighborhood kids would play a game or two of flashlight tag. It was always fun to rustle up some spare change and walk to Zook’s Market to buy penny candy. This was long before the days of slurpees! We used to cut across an old, wooded path where Chester, the harmless local “bum” as we called him, used to sit on a fallen log and down a beer or two. By the age of 12 I was a seasoned babysitter for many neighbors’ children for the lofty sum of fifty cents per hour.

     I consider myself fortunate to have attended Fairfax County Schools: Oakton Elementary, Thoreau Intermediate, and both James Madison and Oakton High Schools. It was such a thrill to be a senior in the class of ’69, the very first graduating class of Oakton High School. From there I opted to stay in Virginia and attended Longwood College in Farmville. There I earned a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education in 1973. And, you might have guessed, my first teaching job was in Annandale.

     What fond memories I have of living in close proximity to an aunt, uncle, cousins and both sets of grandparents. It’s fun to look back at those old black and white photos of family gathered around the Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner table at one house or the other. Major holidays and birthdays were always a cause for some sort of celebration. I fondly recollect spending the night with my cousin Faith who was my same age. We’d lie in her double bed at night, holding hands because I was scared of a freaky clown doll that stood in one corner of her bedroom. We’d play with our Ginny dolls in the fabulous doll house my Uncle Jimmy had built for her. Spending the night with Nanny in her tiny house in Alexandria was fun, too, because we’d catch a bus to Woolworth’s five and dime and grab a bite to eat at the lunch counter.

     Many Sunday afternoons were spent in Winchester at Mom-Mom and Pop-Pop’s house. Their big , white, stucco house was old and intriguing with a wonderful glider in the side yard. Pop-Pop often took my brother Steve and I for rides in the back of his old Ford pick up truck across their hilly pasture land. What a cook Mom-Mom was! Thoughts of her homemade bread and butter pickles, fresh peaches over ice cream or creamed peas still make my mouth water. She could stick her hands in the hottest dishwater and would always hang her damp dish towels out to dry on the back porch clothesline.

     I met my future husband on the steps of the Oakton Methodist Church. It is through knowing him that I found out about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, took the missionary discussions and was baptized into it. All 33 of our married years have been in northern VA, very close to where I grew up. All three of our children have partaken of their mother’s legacy and attended school in Fairfax County, even graduating from Oakton High School.

     At the ripe old age of 55, I think about how my life has been thus far. And I can’t help but consider one pivotal moment when the course of my life might have taken an entirely different path.My father worked as an aircraft mechanic for Capital Airlines at National Airport. When that company merged with United Airlines in the early 1960’s there was a lot of talk about having to transfer to San Francisco where the aircraft mechanics were based. My mother says that I was very adamant about NOT moving across the county—they could go but I would certainly find a way to stay in Virginia! Fortunately for me, my dad became certified as a grounds equipment mechanic and could remain based at National Airport. I can’t help but think what my life would have been like if we had moved to California, away from family. I know that many people move lots of times while they are children, but I feel like I have been really blessed to put down such deep roots in my native Virginia!

First Grade: I Can't Wait, But Please Don't Make Me Go!

Me, first grade

Education would be so much more effective if its purpose were to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they don't know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it.

 - Sir William Haley

     Kindergarten was not part of the Fairfax County school system in the 1950’s. Some children were sent to private kindergarten but these were few and far between and definitely not in the budget for my parents. Having no pre-school experience and little time away from my mother, it’s no wonder my separation anxiety was flying high when first grade began in the fall of 1957.

    I wanted to go! I was ready to go! But during the first six weeks of first grade in Oakton Elementary School I just cried and cried. My mother would send me to the bus stop right by our house at the corner of Hibbard Street and Chain Bridge Road. Off I’d go with all the neighborhood kids—Susan, Buddy, Barbara, Gary, Lorna--but soon after stepping off that big yellow bus my anxiety would have me heaving my breakfast in Miss Loraine Russell’s classroom. The office would summon my mother to come pick me up and take me back home. All my crying had my mother crying, too. I was the first child to go off to school and she was a mere 26. She sought the advice of our older and wiser neighbor, Dorothy Totman, who lived across the street. “Where did I go wrong? What on earth can I do?” Mom pleaded. Wisely, Mrs. Totman told her not to worry. The phase would pass.

     My mother tried a little tough love and told me that if I was indeed sick, I needed to go rest in bed. She comforted me with the gentle reminder that God was always with me and would watch over me. Time after time, after an hour or two of “resting” I assured her I was much better and could return to school. Good thing we lived just a hop, skip and a jump away! After a few weeks of this barfing anxiety, I confessed that something that was bothering me. It seems my teacher had whacked a classmate on the behind with a wooden paddle back in the cloakroom one day and I feared she would come after me. There’s no way I would even dream of getting out of line! Even though unfounded, the fear stayed with me for a time. As I gradually got into the daily school routine, my fear subsided. Miss Russell wasn’t a mean ogre but only expected order and respect from her class.

     I look back now at my yellowed report card from that year and see that there were 180 days on roll. My absences added up to 22. Those had little to do with my self-induced illness but rather chicken pox, mumps and measles. I smile as I read the positive remarks Miss Russell typed for each of the six grading periods. “Bonnie is attentive and follows directions well. She has so much fun attacking new words phonetically.” (See Dick and Jane run. Run, Dick and Jane!) Or finally, “Bonnie is promoted to second grade. She is well prepared for next year’s work.” She never ever wrote one disparaging remark about my adjustment during those first six weeks. I guess she, too, knew the phase would pass.

Supper Time 'Round the Table at 2873 Hibbard St., Oakton, Virginia

Family dinners are coming back into style.

At least, that's what a recent New York Times/CBS News survey reported. 

~ http://recipestoday.com

     My mother says she’s never been a fancy cook, but rather an adequate cook. As I look back, I recollect that her meals were tasty and scrumptious; she liked to try new recipes she clipped out of the Washington Post or Daily News. She was always budget conscious and tried to prepare hearty, economical meals to nourish her two growing children and her husband that had a physically demanding job as a mechanic. We recently reminisced about supper foods she served the family and here are some of the dishes we recalled: corned beef hash with peas, baked Spam with a brown sugar mustard glaze, hot dogs with sauerkraut and lima beans, spaghetti, fish sticks or the favorite Sunday dinner of roast beef, mashed potatoes, carrots and onions. I loved the crusty end slices. Yum! Since we had our big meal in the middle of the day on Sundays, we just ate a light supper in the evening and without a doubt one of my favorites was Campbell’s tomato soup with a grilled cheese or fried egg sandwich.

     There was always a basket of white loaf bread and margarine (never butter) on the dinner table and frequently a tub of cottage cheese, large curd being my particular favorite. My dad and I were the only fresh tomato or tossed salad eaters in our family of four, so in season Mom usually served us a little side salad of iceberg lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes topped with French dressing. A variety of fresh, canned or frozen vegetables balanced out a meal and to this day I love kale, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and beets. Peas and carrots still top my list as all time my favorite veggies.

     I’m not certain when I began trying my hand at cooking, but I remember baking cakes or stirring up a batch of stove-top cookies. Thankfully, Mom let me bustle around the kitchen and I’m sure that gave me a good start to cooking for my own family. One afternoon when I was about ten or eleven years old, it was my chore to start the evening meal. As I unwrapped a brand new stick of margarine to put on the serving dish I accidentally dropped it on the floor. Instead of just picking it up and scraping off the crumbs, I panicked and headed outside to bury it in the dirt by the old aluminum garbage cans in the backyard. I will never know what possessed me to do that, but years later when I confessed the secret dirty deed to Mom, she laughed and laughed and thought that was the silliest thing she ever heard. I’ve decided that one day when I compile a cookbook full of my tried and true recipes, I shall title it, Hey! Don’t Bury the Butter! and dedicate it to little girls everywhere who are just learning to cook and their mothers who are brave enough to let them try.

Skipper

I guess you could call my parents “pet friendly” because during my childhood several cycled through out household. There were the cats named Sambo, Spunky and Callie; a chameleon named Herkimer and a hamster named Sneakers. But the pet that was nearest and dearest to my heart was our dog named Skipper, a daschund-terrier mix. He was big and long with hind legs longer than his front legs which gave him the appearance of always walking downhill. My dad says he got better gas mileage that way, too.

When my brother and I were young Daddy carpooled to work at National Airport with a man by the name of Bill Sterling. He lived in Oakton like we did and was Skipper’s original owner. As the story goes, one day Bill and his family decided to leave Oakton and move to a brand new $25,000 house near Mantua in Fairfax. Along with that decision to move up in the world they also came to the conclusion that it was time for Skipper, a mutt, to also move on. After their move, in fact, the Sterlings purchased a pure-bred daschund.

Skipper needed to find a new home and came to live with our family on Christmas Day 1957 when I was six and my brother not yet four. While we were busily checking out what Santa had delivered, Daddy quietly left the house and went to fetch the dog. When he returned a short while later, he let Skipper enter by the back door off the kitchen. As he ambled through the house on his way to the living room, my brother Steve looked up and asked, “What’s Bill Sterling’s dog doing over here?”

Skipper was black with a few brown markings and to this day I recall him fondly as a good ol’ dog. He lived outside much of the time and had a very cool doghouse with white aluminum siding and shingles to match our house. His little house was very comfy for him and unless the outdoor temperature was extremely hot or cold, he slept in it. He would run away if he escaped the fenced backyard and on a couple of occasions he trotted back to the Sterling’s old house about a mile away. Although generally mild mannered he absolutely did NOT like cats that teased him outside the fence. When the milkman made a delivery Skipper barked like he was going to tear him up. Little children were in danger of a nip if they grabbed him around the neck and Willie Lent, the local paperboy, even lost a little bit of skin off his finger when he opened the storm door to deliver the newspaper one evening.

Skipper was prone to sniffing the air and baying at the moon some nights. My mother attributes this to his raging doggie hormones, for he never was neutered. He would not play ball or fetch but we often observed him all alone, tossing a stick up into the air and catching it. He ran around the yard so much that he wore away the grass, making dirt paths along the fence and from the backdoor to the doghouse. His absolute favorite treat was a graham cracker and would sit upon his hind legs to beg for one. The slightest rattle of the aluminum cookie jar would rouse him from a deep sleep and send him flying to the kitchen hoping for a treat.

Back in the 1950’s and ‘60’s it was the custom to buy kids baby chicks for Easter. One time we had gotten a couple of purple chicks from the Peter Pan Variety Store in Vienna that we kept in a box in the basement. Skipper could hear their peeps and for long stretches of time would sit staring at a crack in the floor, drooling and listening, hoping for a tasty chicky morsel.

One summer Steve and I entered Skipper in a local dog show for kids sponsored by Kennel Ration Dog Food. The afternoon event was held in the Giant Food Store parking lot in Vienna. Beforehand we bathed and brushed Skipper up on the backyard picnic table. He wasn’t trained in any way at all, but when it came time to be judged he stood perfectly still, pointed his tail and looked straight ahead as if he were a grand champion. To our surprise he won a ribbon for Best Cared For Dog by a Boy which was, in fact, Skipper’s solitary achievement.

At the age of sixteen Skipper developed a tumor in his throat that wrapped itself around his doggie vocal chords. During an operation the vet could only remove a portion of the growth and in time the remaining part led to an infection in his brain. My mother was the unfortunate one who witnessed his last breath in this world. My dad wrapped him in an old plastic shower curtain and buried him in a grave under our neighbor’s tree which bordered Flint Hill Cemetery. It was indeed sad to loose a good friend who loved unconditionally.

Perhaps having a dog for those ten years of my formative life turned me into the dog friendly person I am today. When my own children were very young and we lived in our townhouse on Ellenwood Drive in Fairfax, we surprised them with their very own Bob Barker, a feisty four month old Cairn terrier who truly lived up to her name.

My Birth

My parents, George and Vilma Hanes, were married on September 29, 1950 at Kendall Baptist Church in Washington, D.C. They honeymooned in Niagara Falls, NY then settled into their daily lives while living in a one bedroom, one bath apartment in Walter Reed Gardens in Arlington, VA. She would turn 20 on October 17th and he had just celebrated his 28th birthday on September 25th.

While my dad worked as a mechanic for Capital Airlines at National Airport, my mother worked as a clerk-typist in the False and Misleading Advertising Division of the Federal Trade Commission. (For example, Scott bathroom tissue advertised 1,000 sheets on every roll. Somebody with a lot of time on their hands counted and submitted a complaint that there were only 985! Her duty was to channel this written complaint to the proper attorney.) Her plan was to work a couple of years and then start having babies. As luck would have it (or, as I like to think, the Lord willed it!), by the end of that first October she realized she was in the family way. “No, no! This can’t be! It’s not supposed to happen like this!” was her cry. Yes, I was on the way and due to arrive on or about July 5, 1951.

Maternity fashions were quite blousy back in the 1950’s. Maybe you can recall an old I Love Lucy TV show and the pretty smocks Lucy wore while pregnant with Little Ricky. Bows, collars, polka dots or box pleats accented the tops which were usually worn with skirts that had an expandable waist. Ladies hardly ever wore slacks back then-- maybe dungarees around the house--but not out in public.

My mother’s obstetrician was Dr. J. Earl Kaden who practiced in Washington, DC. Women who suspected they were pregnant were advised not to even see a doctor until they had missed three monthly cycles. My due date was determined by the first time my mother felt movement plus five months. How scientific!

On Monday, June 19th, my mother went for her regular doctor’s appointment and was told that her baby was still high and probably wouldn’t arrive that week. Of course, on Tuesday her water broke and began a slight trickle. Her immediate thought was, “No! Not yet! I have to wait until June 29th for our 9 month anniversary!” Dr. Kaden was called but he said to wait until she had pains before leaving for the hospital. With that advice, she packed her suitcase with clean gowns and undies and went on to bed.

About 1 a.m. on the 20th she felt some discomfort and a few little pains. Within the hour the doctor was called again and he instructed her to go to the hospital. Out the door they went, off to Columbia Hospital in DC. By the time my parents arrived, her pains had stopped, but since her water had broken she was admitted, and my dad was sent home to wait. Around 6 a.m. her labor had not progressed so she was taken to the maternity ward and put to bed. Her orders were to stay off her feet and get up only to use the bathroom.

Well, she lay there all day, bored, lonely, with only a little sip of water now and then. No food was allowed because she would eventually be given anesthetic to be totally “knocked out” for the delivery. As night began to fall, lower back labor began in earnest, for she can recall how she felt like she was bending backward. She says she gripped the bed covers so fiercely that the nurse had to pry her fingers off the sheets. Even when the nurse checked her progress she told my mother she needed to hurt worse! At some point, she was wheeled to the labor room where the doctor checked her and ordered a shot in the hip of some mysterious medication. She remembered nothing, even the delivery, until she woke up back in her bed in the ward the next morning. In the meantime, my dad, still anxiously waiting at home, had received a call to inform him of my birth but was told not to return to the hospital until the next morning. He must have needed his rest after waiting all that time!

The doctor came to my mother’s bedside on his morning rounds and she anxiously inquired about her new baby. He said that yes, indeed, she had given birth to a beautiful baby girl at 11:25 p.m., weighing in at 7 lb. 1 oz., 20” long, and born breech.

“Breech? What? Did you know my baby was coming breech?” she asked. “Yes, I knew,” (and certainly at this point he patted her hand in a fatherly fashion) “but I didn’t want you to worry [dear].”

Post partum recovery in the early 1950’s consisted of a lengthy hospital stay. Mom remained in bed, day and night, for three days, having to use a bedpan for bathroom necessities; on day four she was permitted to dangle her feet off the side of the bed; on day five she could walk to the bathroom; on day six she went home. Her instructions were to rest for two weeks and do as little as possible except care for her baby--and no stairs and no lifting!

I was given the name Bonnie Lee for no particular reason other than the fact that my mother liked it and didn’t want me named after any relatives. After the fact, though, it was discovered that I shared my middle name with a great grandmother on my father’s side of the family, Virginia Lee Darne(s). I was the first and only granddaughter on that same side of the family and the third grandchild on my mother’s side. My mother became a stay at home mother which is something I have always appreciated and strived for myself when I became a mother.

I was bottle fed on a formula made, in large part, with Carnation canned milk plus some powdered nutritional additive. When the Jewel Tea salesman came knocking at the front door, my mother purchased a six-glass bottle sterilizer. (To this day my mother uses that big aluminum pot to make soup.) All diapers were cloth and secured with safety pins, with plastic pants or diaper covers on top.

Mom brushed my hair into a little curly top-knot. I laughed out loud at two months, cut my first tooth at five months, and walked alone on my first birthday. It’s a wonder I lived through measles, mumps and chicken pox considering all the aspirin and penicillin injections I was given. My pediatrician, Dr. John Sherburn, had a basement office in his home on Hillwood Ave. in Falls Church VA and even made house calls.

I was the sole object of my parent’s attention until my brother Steve was born two years and nine months later. His birth is another story as he began his venture into this world, feet first, in the living room, at home. . .

What I Would Save In Case of A Fire

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
- Oscar Wilde

I love a thought provoking question or an if/then statement where you have to fill in the blank. “If money were no object. . .”, “If you were marooned on a desert island. . .” or “If you had six months to live. . .” Why, I could wax on while completing those statements! So why does writing an anecdote about what I would save in case of a fire in my house have me going round in circles? I think it’s because there are so many obvious things I’d want to round up and throw out a window to safety if my house were ablaze.

First and foremost, our family “papers” and some other small family keepsakes are kept at home in a locked, fireproof, steel box or away in our bank safety deposit box. Birth certificates, insurance policies, car titles, patriarchal blessings, passports, etc. are securely tucked away. Along with those papers there are random things, like an old collection of silver dollars or a ring my grandmother bequeathed to her only granddaughter – me!

On the other hand, there are some things not protected by any type of steel box and their loss would devastate me. Here’s a sampling of the laundry list: family photos and records which include the recent acquisition of a picture of and a story about my great-great grandpa John Bunyan Thompson who ran a farm along Pig Basket Creek in Wilson County, NC; my children’s baby books which include a lock from a first haircut or a scrap of a beloved blankie; my personal journal which I began while awaiting the birth of my son in 1977; my book collection which includes yearbooks from Oakton and Madison High Schools; or the child-size rough hewn rocking chair that belonged to my great great grandpa Tavenner. All these things are dear, yet there is one other precious item I would want to save from a fire. That is the surprise gift my husband gave me at the stroke of midnight, the dawn of a new millennium, on New Year’s Eve 1999. It is a small gold heart pendant and yes, it could be replaced. But the thought, effort and love put into that gesture are priceless. I hope that one day a great granddaughter of mine will wear that necklace in remembrance of me -- or, better yet, stash it away in a locked, fireproof, steel box of her own.

Mr. and Mrs. Ernest L. Myers: Our Story

After our engagement, someone gave us a journal-type book entitled Our Wedding Book. In it are sections we filled out to preserve the details of our story—where we met and fell in love, how we announced our plans to marry, bridal showers and parties, the wedding ceremony, honeymoon, etc. Luckily much of the story has been recorded and it is from there I write my thoughts today.

Ernie and I were introduced on the evening of June 13, 1971, a week before my 20th birthday. Our mutual friend, Gary Totman introduced us. He and Ernie were school mates at the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science and Gary and I had lived across the street from each other from the time we were 4 years old. We attended Oakton Methodist Church and it was there Ernie came to attend a musical program called “Tell It Like It Is.”

After that very brief meeting, we went our separate ways but a week later, much to my surprise, I received a birthday card from Ernie. On that same day both Gary and Ernie came by to visit me at my house and the three of us went for a ride around town, over to Reston, that budding, new planned community, then to a carnival in Vienna. From that time on Ernie and I began seeing more and more of each other, even though Gary had cautioned me, “You don’t want to mess around with him—he’s one of those dang Mormons!”

During the next year we were together as much as possible, even though I was attending college about 3 hours away down in Farmville VA and Ernie was in living and working in Arlington. In our wedding journal book I recorded some of the highlights of that first year knowing each other: celebrating Ernie’s birthday with friends in Richmond, spending Thanksgiving at my house, the Christmas party given by my parents for a few friends, the New Year’s Eve party at Ernie and Gary’s apartment, the night Ernie got snowed in at my home, the teddy bear Ernie bought me for Valentine’s Day, and the wedding weekend of one of Ernie’s cousins. We had no cell phones or email and rarely called long distance, so we mailed letters back and forth. Oh how we lived for mail down at school!

Finally, school was out for me – I had completed my junior year of college – and we continued spending time together in the spring and summer of 1972. On the evening of July 22nd, after a quiet dinner for two that Ernie cooked at his apartment, he proposed. A couple days later, we, rather he, announced our plans to marry over a spaghetti supper at my house. Ernie was so nervous he hardly ate a bite but managed to announce his intentions by the time supper was over. My mother said she was surprised it hadn’t happened sooner and my dad just grinned. Both my parents have always been very fond of Ernie!

Prior to the infamous pasta dinner, Ernie had called his mother in Pembroke VA to tell her the good news. That night we celebrated our engagement by attending a Roberta Flack concert at Carter Baron Amphitheatre in Rock Creek Park with our friend Lisa Getchell and her boyfriend Brian Klare.

After much discussion and consulting the calendar, we decided that our wedding would take place at 4 pm on July 21, 1973 and that we would get married in the LDS chapel on Scotts Run Road in McLean where we attended church. I was baptized into the church on Sept. 12, 1972 and because of our family situation and my short membership in the church, a chapel wedding was in order. Our temple sealing would come at a later date. Wedding plans began to firm up over the course of the next few months.

Before the new year, I had found my wedding dress at Hecht’s department store at Tyson’s Corner Mall. It was an A-line style, empire waist, with lace insets and seed pearls in the long sleeves and bodice. The train was full and the veil elbow length. The invitations we selected must have been trendy for the times. They were on cream paper and opened like a greeting card with a black and white photo of us on the front. The message portion was written paragraph style. I don’t recall how many we mailed out to friends and family, but approx. 140 people attended the wedding ceremony and reception.

The bridal party consisted of a maid of honor (my cousin Faith), two bridesmaids (Ernie’s sisters, Brenda Jo and Ella Mae), a flower girl (my young cousin Dana Whiteheart), a best man (Ernie’s boyhood friend Peyton Dowdy), four ushers (my brother Steve + three of Ernie’s friends) and a ring bearer (Ernie’s nephew Donnie Crawford). Our soloist (Ann Garland Smith) was a college friend of mine and the organist (Barbara Hanson) was the funeral home organist.

At this point in our story I must interject what we call the "Flower Girl Legacy" in my family. Let me explain. In 1950 at the age of 10, my mother’s younger sister Linda was a flower girl in her wedding. When Linda got married in 1960 I was a junior bride’s maid in her wedding. When I got married in 1973, Linda’s young daughter Dana was a flower girl for me. When Dana got married in the early 1990’s, my daughter Shannon was in her wedding. Shannon got married in 2004 and Dana’s daughter Cassidy was her flower girl. So if the tradition continues, someday Shannon’s future daughter will be in Cassidy’s wedding. At Shannon’s bridal shower a photo was taken of all of us flower girls in a row and has become a cherished possession.

We asked Ernie’s bishop from “down home” to perform the marriage and he was to be assisted by Bishop Ellis Packer of the Falls Church Ward. At the last minute he became ill, so his counselor Zane Mason stepped in for him. We asked the organist, Barbara Hanson, to play several songs before the wedding ceremony began. They were: "One Hand, One Heart," "Today," "A Time for Us," "Cherish," the theme from the movie Love Story, "Exodus," "The Sweetheart Tree," "More," "The Lord’s Prayer," "Never My Love" and "Love, Look at the Two of Us."

My mother had a tall ceramic cat bank she kept change in and dedicated the amount inside toward the cost of the reception. When the day came that we broke open the kitty, we found a mysterious $100 bill inside and really oooo-ed and ahhh-ed over that. Our reception was very simple, with cake, punch, mints, nuts, and finger sandwiches served in the cultural hall of the chapel. Because we weren’t aware of the “rules” we had candles burning on the serving table. My brother Steve provided taped background music for the reception. The cake was white pound cake decorated with white icing and yellow sugar roses. The top layer contained a small live floral arrangement of yellow roses and white daisies. My bridal bouquet was also yellow roses.

Photos of the wedding party were taken outside during a very sunny, hot and humid break in a rainstorm. By the time Ernie and I left the reception it was storming again and we just about got drenched. I’m sure the rice the guests threw at us made a very fine mess.

After the ceremonial bouquet throwing and garter tossing, Ernie and I left for our wedding night and our week long honeymoon. We hopped in our red ’73 Buick Skylark and drove from McLean down to Petersburg VA where we spent our wedding night in the bridal suite at the Holiday Inn. The next day we left for Nags Head, NC to enjoy a few days at the beach. The weather was perfect. Upon our return we began married life living in our first apartment at Coralain Gardens on Arlington Blvd. in Falls Church. How did we ever afford that $200/month rent for that 2 bedroom apartment?

Ernie fondly recalls the display of all our wedding gifts that my mother set up in our spare bedroom at home. I carefully recorded each gift and promptly sent thank you notes. My gift registry pages list 172 gifts we received. I’m sure that list included shower gifts as well.

Stuck in one of the pages of the journal book are charge receipts from some wedding expenses. Here are some of the items Ernie had to pay for: $45.76 for his tux rental, $45.76 for two nights room rental for an out of town guest, $13.27 for our wedding night steak dinner, $21.60 for rental of the bridal suite at the Holiday Inn, $114.40 for several days room rental at the Sea Foam Motel in Nags Head. It must be noted that our marriage license was purchased for $7.00 from the Clerk of the Court in Fairfax County on June 28, 1973. Last but not least, keep in mind that when we got married Ernie Myers had $120 in the bank. Period.