Last Week
This and last week has been merciless to us thin-blooded southerners; wind chill readings at night have been as low as twelve degrees. We discovered frost one morning, a twinkling fringe adorning each leaf and blade of grass. Sweaters, jackets, scarves, gloves, and heavy quilts have seen great use.
The cold weather began last Sunday night. Tuesday morning, Mama was prevailed upon to build a fire, but Littlest Brother and I were working in the guest room—he was doing schoolwork and I was writing letters to little cousins—and we were far away from the fireplace and very cold. When it got too cold, Next Sister, Biggest Brother, and I would swing. (Papa, inspired by happy memories of watching his parent Jitterbug, joined several of our dance sessions with endearing enthusiasm.) Next Sister is planning to have a 1940s wedding, and the entire wedding party is supposed to swing at the reception. We figured we had better start learning now; it might take us a few years. Having practiced the East-Coast Swing several days with the help of a Cal Pozo DVD, we had graduated to Glenn Miller and Benny Goodman. After the daily half hour, we would shed our sweaters and laugh breathlessly. Our present campaign is to conquer the “Bugle Call Rag.” One has to move insanely fast; I feel like a cartoon when I’m doing it.
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I was surprised by a gift from my parents: a gardenia bush. Several days later, it produced a creamy-colored bloom, heavily fragrant. The sweet scent always reminds me of the “old house,” where we lived until I was eight; Miss Bonnie, the neighbor, had a gardenia bush growing against her house. I remember that I asked permission to take a gardenia bloom with me to the Cinderella Ball I attended with my father. I had felt very grown-up with it pinned against my blue-patterned dress.
I have to dig a hole for the bush tomorrow; I have chosen a place for it, and it is sitting there in its plastic pot. I am glad the weather warmed before I’ll have to go out and attack the stony soil with a pickax.
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Last Friday was wet, grey, and very cold. I spent the morning sorting through my old seventh and eighth grade school papers. Papa is weeding out the boxes that have been languishing in our attic for over a decade; among them are school things from when I was in kindergarten. Being nostalgic, but also not desiring to keep several hundred pounds of paper in my closet, I am saving just a few memorable samples from each grade—thirteen blessed years of homeschool. The other papers I am throwing away or putting in the scrap-paper pile. My siblings, using these scraps for their own math computations and note-taking, are more interested in my own childish handwriting on the other side. They find even more amusing the verbose sentences I wrote to demonstrate correct spelling and proper grammar. Second Brother was so interested, that he took my old grammar book with him to bed, to read my “crazy, cool sentences.” “Hey,” I admonished him. “I had a lot fun with my schoolwork.”
Samples? Littlest Sister guffawed uncharitably at this one.
The governor, Master Lemuel Patrick Adams, lives down one of those little detours called Benevolence Boulevard where sunshafts and shadows marry under the screening canopy of entwined, oaken branches.
“How do sun shafts and shadows marry?” she laughed. “Figure of speech,” I sniffed. Even when given as boring a word as “governor,” I was sure to craft a sentence that pleased my Romantic nature. It is also an example of my delight in names; the longer and more suggestive they were, the better.
This next one must have been read aloud twenty times and laughed at as often.
It was on that fateful June 3 when the alluring and savory fragrance of Japanese honeysuckle flooded the air, that the fair corpse of Irish, with her ivory skin and golden lashes shadowing her pink cheeks, was carried to an unmarked grave where she would lay unknown to the bustling world above.
“I thought you were supposed to write a sentence, not a paragraph,” Biggest Brother joked. “Pink cheeks?” Mama remarked. “She must not have been really dead.” Fateful, not surprisingly, was the word that suggested this particular deluge of melodrama.
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Saturday morning and afternoon found us busily cleaning and decorating for the much-anticipated costume ball, held to celebrate a successful first year for the Soirée Society of the Arts. I still hadn’t decided what to wear, but Mama had suggested Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm; I looked the part in Littlest Sister’s pink dress, Next Sister’s riding boots, and my straw hat. (It is very convenient having four women in the family who wear about the same sizes.)
Next Sister had planned her vintage costume weeks before; she was to be Susan Pevensie. She had even researched and created a ticket such as those worn by British children being sent to the countryside during the London Blitz.
Littlest Sister was a flamboyantly dressed as a gypsy, with a tangerine skirt, scarlet bodice, puffy sleeves, and a wild assortment of scarves. Her loose hair was wrapped in a dark headscarf decorated with metallic thread. Next Sister’s large hoop earrings completed the impression.
Biggest Brother was to be dressed as Captain Nemo, of the John Mason interpretation. A white turtleneck sweater, a heavy overcoat, and a captain’s hate made a wonderful effect. He had purchased a long black beard (which he called a “belly beard”), and we were hurriedly trimming it even as our first guests arrived.
Second Brother was regally arrayed for an evening at the opera, but he wasn’t sure who he was. He decided on Dorian Gray as being more familiar than Bertie Wooster, but, as it turned out, nobody had heard of Dorian Gray either. We used a white-board portrait, executed by Mama, to explain the story of Dorian’s degeneration. As the evening progressed, the portrait became increasingly hideous as certain siblings slyly added their own artwork.
“I’m going as the famous detective Dick Tracy,” Third Brother had proudly informed a friend the night before. “Who’s Dick Tracy?” was the ironic response. With his fedora, suit, and pistol, Third Brother did make a wonderful impression of the homicide detective of the comic strip and movies.
Littlest Brother was Sergeant Alvin York, which I horribly misspelled on his name tag. He looked like a little man in his camouflage, boots, and garrison cap. It was fun to see him marching around, collecting names on his dance card.
Papa had dropped few tantalizing hints about a surprise in his costume. “What is it?” we begged. He grinned. “Nothing you haven’t seen before.” When he came out, his several-day’s beard shaved into chops and a moustache, there were plenty of delighted squeals. “Like Thomas Chamberlain!” Second Brother cried. “I love it!”
Mama was dressed in her Civil War costume; she was Mrs. March. “But wait! Wasn’t Mr. March on the Union side?” she mused. “That’s alright,” said Papa, straightening his grey wool jacket. “I took care of him.”
As the evening darkened, we became very impatient. The Christmas lights twinkled, and the fountains plashed. The refreshments were set out, and the electric wires arranged. It wasn’t time yet for guests to arrive, but our feet were aching to dance. To “test” the makeshift sound system, we danced several lively numbers, and practiced our swing. The first guests soon joined us, and we admired each other’s costumes, and added the refreshments they had brought to the tables outside.
It was wonderful to see the dance floor—the covered pool porch—crowded with gypsies, gentlemen, soldiers, cowboys, ladies, and even Indiana Jones and a Viking. I called nine different dances, and everyone danced, from six year-olds to... the parents. Papa wouldn’t allow anyone to be a wall-flower. Even our most reluctant guests soon found themselves comfortably navigating the dance floor, eagerly learning to waltz and polka, and having a wonderful time. You can seen an album of the costume dance HERE.
We were blessed to have few accidents. Once, while chassaying “home” for the OXO Reel, the head of one gentleman made a reverberating connection with the light fixture. This same fixture later caused problems for Biggest Brother, who was attempting to balance beneath it during the Circassian Circle. Other than these, mishaps were limited to the occasional stomp on the toe, and to shoes, hats, and hair bows flying off during the especially vigorous dances.
We closed the program with the Appalachian square dance prayer, after which requests were taken from the floor until 11:00 PM—though most of us felt that we could keep dancing. Already, we are making plans for another dance before summer.
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BIG DADDY said...
Thank you for a wonderful evening. Most of the memorable times I have been blessed with this year were the direct result of the efforts of my children. I am thankful that God’s work in your lives has produced such fruit. I am truly blessed.
Sunday, January 2, 2011 08:32 PM
Friday, December 17, 2010