Goodbye Aunt Wallie

          So! Here we are again! Twice in one week! Can you stand it?

          I blew you off on Saturday to go to my Aunt Wallie’s viewing and funeral. We could’ve just gone to the Mass and graveside service and skipped the viewing and not had to pay for a motel room. But honestly, even being as big a homebody as I am, it was nice to have a night out.

          We dropped Bondi off with the Kipps along with a bag of dog food and her nighttime treats. We even included treats for the Kipps' dog, Tux. Then it was off we went.

          We could’ve gotten on the highway but I asked if we could take back roads and stay off the highway. “I get to see more things that way.”

          Mike is a good husband and complied.

          We weren’t even on new-to-me roads when I started snapping pictures.

Then we saw flashing lights and a whole line of cars ahead of us. I thought it was an accident but it’s not. They’re trout stocking the creek.

           And then we were there.

          “Where?” you ask.

          Hallstead. That’s where the Colonial Brick Inn was located. It’s only about fifty miles from home but as I said in my earlier letter blog, we didn’t want to drive home after dark.

          We got a suite with a king-size bed. We had to go the whole way down the hall and through the door, just like we’re going out.

          There were two suites at the end of the hall, this one and one on the opposite side.  

Our room was hot. Too hot. Mike shut the heat off and turned the TV on. He stepped back and sat on the end of the bed. I was sitting at a small table they provided.

          “Did you bring the binoculars?” he asked.

          It took me a second to realize what he was getting at and laughed. “It is a pretty small TV.” Ours at home is an eighty-five incher.

          The viewing wouldn’t be until seven pm so we had a few hours to kill. Mike thumbed through the channels, finding something he could nap to, and I was reading my book.

          Oh emm ghee! I have to tell you what I’m reading now! My handsome almost-twin brother David reads and re-reads the same set of books over and over. One of those is Swan Song by Robert McCammon. I checked it out of the library a week ago and started reading. It’s an Armageddon-type book. The end of the world because the Russians and the Americans pushed the button. It’s the classic tale of good versus evil. The first night after I read the first scene with the devil in it, I had nightmares! The book is scary! I’m about halfway through and I’ve contemplated not finishing but I’m hoping for a happy ending. I do love happy endings. And that’s all I’m gonna say about it.

          This area, where the motel is, is host to many businesses. We were checking out the available food eating places since we needed to find supper someplace.

          “There’s a Tim Hortons,” Mike said. “I wonder what kind of food they have.”

          I picked up my phone and Googled it. “It’s a Canadian fast-food place,” I said skimming the info. “They serve coffee, doughnuts, and other fast-food items.”

          Mike drives past and we see posters of sandwiches in the windows.

          You wanna know the craziest part about this? Guess what comes up in my newsfeed on Facebook? Yep. An ad for Tim Hortons. They’ve connected my phone with my Facebook page on my computer. They know, don’t they!

          I’m not sure why I took this picture, but looking at it on my computer I see the price of a pack of Newport cigarettes. Holy cow! And that’s a special price!

          We settled on a family style restaurant called Dobb’s. 

         We went in and after being seated, the lady at the next table spoke to us. She was getting ready to leave.

          “You have to have the chicken and biscuits,” she advised unsolicited. “It's so good! My husband has gone fishing for a few days and I had to come here and get some comfort food.”

          “Thank you!” I said.

          Sabrina, our waitress, come over. “What can I get for you?”

          “I hate to even tell you this, but I don’t know what chicken and biscuits are. How is that prepared?” I bet you can’t believe I’ve lived this many years and never had chicken and biscuits, can you?

          “It’s chicken she cooks and pulls apart and makes gravy. It’s served over homemade biscuits with mashed potatoes and your choice of sides,” Sabrina answered.

          I like chicken gravy. I like biscuits. And I love mashed potatoes. “I’ll have that,” I said. When I got it, I tucked right in before I thought to take a picture. It was downhome good comfort food. I couldn’t eat it all but I ate all the good parts — and left some of the biscuits behind. They were good, just not as good as the real (and a little lumpy—but I didn’t mind) mashed potatoes, and I was full.

          Mike ordered broiled haddock and was sorry afterward. You wouldn’t believe what they charged for that piece of fish!

          We went back to our room to get ready for the viewing.

Hennessey’s Funeral Home was in the town of Susquehanna, about nine miles from where we were staying. I took more road pictures.

We were early and waited for the Priest to finish a family prayer service. We weren’t far down the receiving line but waited and waited for the lady ahead of as she carried on an extended conversation with Mary, one of Aunt Wallie’s daughters.

“Let’s skip ahead,” I said to Mike and we expressed our condolences to the other surviving daughter, Theresa. In the picture, Mary is just about in the middle and you can see her face. Then it’s Theresa, a nephew, Mary’s husband — I think. Don’t hold me to that one. A granddaughter, a great-granddaughter you can’t see and Theresa’s husband Bob, whom you can’t see in the picture either.

Boy, my photography skills are lacking, aren’t they!

Speaking of which, I did ask for permission to take photos. “There’s some family that can’t make it,” I told Theresa.

“Absolutely,” she said. “We took lots of pictures, too.”

I was surprised. I took that to mean they took pictures of Aunt Wallie in her casket. I took one of those, too, but won’t share it unless you specifically ask for it.

We found a place to sit and Mike struck up a conversation with Catherine, a friend of Mary’s.

Theresa and Bob live in Colorado and have visited many times with my cute little sister who lives nearby. When Bob was free, I introduced myself.

“I can see the resemblance to Diane,” he said.

That’s not a bad thing. Diane is a beautiful woman — and has red hair! I was always so jealous of that!

After a bit, my cousins Rosemary and Lorraine came in. Once again, the receiving line was stalled and I went up and said hello.

“I’m not waiting anymore,” Rosemary said. She and her handsome husband Carmen found Mike and sat with him. Lorraine and I chatted while she waited.

Sigh.

Once again, my photo skills are lacking. Not only did I NOT get a picture of Lorraine at the viewing, I didn’t get one the next day either! OY!

“I was watching the pictures,” Mike said. “She came from a big family, didn’t she? There’s one picture with a whole bunch of people in it.”

“It might be a family reunion,” Rosemary suggested. “But she did have several brothers and sisters.”

“I didn’t even see the pictures,” I said. “I’m gonna go watch them.” There was only one screen and it was in a different room.

“I didn’t either. I’ll go with you,” Lorraine said.

We stood and watched a rather long slide presentation of Aunt Wallie’s life. I like the old pictures, so I took pictures of a few of them.

I don’t expect you to read her obit, but you can if you want to. Aunt Wallie was born in Germany and immigrated with her family to America when she was five.

          After the untimely death of her first husband, Wallie moved to Jackson township, PA where her parents had purchased a home. She met her second husband Clarence Smith at church there.  After dating for a period with no overtures from him, she finally decided to propose! Wallie and Clarence married in 1963 and had more than 50 wonderful years together — taken from her obit. It makes me chuckle, no overtures from him so she proposed.

          I like their wedding picture when they’re in the back of a car. It looks like it rained. Look how beautiful Aunt Wallie is! And of course, my Uncle Clarence was a very handsome man!

          I took this picture because this is the way I remember Mary and Theresa. I didn’t recognize the grown women they’d become.

          Lorraine likes this one and submitted it because it has our grandparents’ old home in the background. 

          This next picture shows Uncle Clarence and Aunt Wallie as they visited with Rosemary and Lorraine’s parents, my beloved Aunt Marie and Uncle Rex.

          And this picture just makes me laugh right out loud. 

          After we watched the pictures the whole way through, Lorraine and I wandered back to the viewing.

          Mike was deep in conversation with Theresa’s husband Bob. He was regaling Bob with stories from his trucking days, and Bob was enthralled.

          “Our country runs on truckers,” I heard him say. “Thank you for your service. I always thought I’d like to drive truck.”

          “It’s a hard life,” I chipped in. “Mike paid a dear price for it.” It takes a special woman to wait all week or two weeks for your husband to come home for a day or two before he hits the road again. Mike went through three before he met me. I guess we’re gonna stick. We’ve been together for twenty-seven years now.

          The flowers were pretty. I needed something to do while Bob and Mike talked. 

          Later, Mike tells me that a lot of people think they’d like to be a trucker, until they start doing it.

          It was dark when we left the funeral home and I’m a little deer shy since we hit that one last year. I helped Mike watch for them but we didn’t see any.

          Back in our room, Mike scrolled through the cable channels and settled on HGTV while I read.

          THUMP! Tromp-tromp-run-run-run! came noises and the sound of little feet above us.

          “Holy cow!” Mike said.

          “There must be a couple of kids up there horsing around,” I guessed.

          The thumps, bumps, and running feet didn’t slow down until almost one o’clock in the morning. I know! I was awake!

          Between the noisy neighbors and forgetting my PJ’s, I didn’t sleep well. Four in the a.m. I wake up and can’t get back to sleep. I laid there and listened to the radio on my pillow speaker until five when it was time to take my reflux meds. A little later, Mike was awake and turned the TV on. Between the TV and the shower, I don’t know if we woke them up or not.

          “Probably not,” Mike guessed.

          We went back to Dobb’s and I had my Saturday morning pancakes and bacon. Normally I eat my pancakes butter and syrup free. These weren’t as good as Mike’s so I had to use butter and syrup. Mike had an omelet. Then it was back to our room to wait until it was time to get ready for the church service. Mike napped. I read.

          Aunt Wallie wanted to be laid to rest next to Uncle Clarence in the graveyard at Starrucca. Other relatives of mine are buried there as well, but the church was closed years ago so the Mass was at a church in Jackson, about fifteen miles from where we were staying. I took more pictures for you.

          At the church.

          I was surprised, when we stepped inside the doors and had to ascend a flight of stairs to reach the church proper. I’m not sure what else to call it.

          “It’s not handicapped friendly,” I muttered as we climbed the stairs.

          “Maybe they have a back entrance for the handicapped,” Mike said holding on to the rail.

          Rosemary told me they have a chair lift as well as a wheelchair elevator.

          Aunt Wallie was carried up the stairs.

          Something else that surprised me was there weren’t any programs. Normally they have a pamphlet with the songs and readings in them. But I got along just fine without one.

          The drive out to the graveyard was another ten miles.

          More road pictures?

          Pulling into the parking lot, I see they have the vault sitting at the bottom of the hill. Waaaay up on the hill you can see the backhoe where Aunt Wallie will rest.      

          Afterwards, beautiful cousin Lorraine and I climbed the hill to visit.

          “Who thought it was a good idea to put a cemetery on a hill?” I asked as I huffed and puffed my way to the top.

          Okay! Okay! I know I called it a cemetery when it’s a graveyard, but these days we use the term interchangeably.

          “What’s the difference?” you ask.

          A graveyard is accompanied by a church. A cemetery doesn’t have a church on the grounds.

          “I guess Patrick Sullivan,” she answered.

          At the top I took a picture of Patrick Sullivan’s headstone. He’s our great-grandfather. We see he was married to Margaret — and look! There’s my beautiful Lorraine!

          “Is that who you were named after?” Lorraine asked.

          “I don’t know,” I answered.

          “Look how the tree is swallowing up the headstone,” Lorraine pointed out.

          I had to lighten the picture quite a lot to bring it out of the shadows for you to see.

          They had to move all the headstones in order to dig the grave.

          Ralph and Mary Agnes are our grandparents on our mothers’ side. 

          Lorraine’s mother and my mother were sisters. Patrick was Agnes’ father.

          I took a picture of the church from the top of the hill.

          Other people made their way up the hill visiting family headstones. One of those guys mentioned the way Aunt Wallie’s name was pronounced.

          “The Germans couldn’t say the W sound, it was always a V. So, she was Vault.”

          That’s how he said it, I’m not sure how he would spell it. It seems to me, since her name was Waltraut, there would be more syllables than Vault, even in German — but what do I know!

          The family planned a dinner afterwards, at the fire hall in Thompson, about four-miles from where we were.

          Lorraine rode to the cemetery with Rosemary and Carmen and they went on ahead. Mike and I took her back to where she left her car at the church.

          “I should’ve just driven out here myself,” she apologized.

Lorraine felt bad about taking us out of the way. I didn’t. “It gives me another chance at pictures I missed the first time.” I wasn’t sad about that at all, and I bet you won’t be either!

The old Agway mill. Is this where Mom used to buy the cereal for us? They had the best whole grain cereal, but were forced to stop making it.

          “Why?” you wanna know.

          Something about making people food and dog food in the same facility.

           “There’s our uncle's old gas station!” I pointed out.

          “Yep, Uncle Miles,” Lorraine said. “Is the name still on it?”

          “It is!”

           At the fire hall, all I did was eat and visit. 

         I’ll tell you what! I’ve always known that my beautiful cousin Rosemary is a fabulous cook, but this is the first time I’ve had her lemon meringue pie.

          “It’s the best!” Lorraine told me.

          We snagged several pieces before we had our dinner, just to make sure we got one.

          We had ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, beans, and a dinner roll. I wolfed it down, in a hurry to try this pie that was staring at me. Lorraine was right. It is the best! It was so lemony and refreshing!

          “I’m disappointed that it wept,” Rosemary said.

          Lorraine leaned over and whispered. “That hardly ever happens to her.”

          “Is the crust soggy?” she asked.

          For Rosemary’s standards, it probably was. But I didn’t think it was all that bad.

          “She made a fresh strawberry pie, too,” Lorraine informed.

          My Miss Rosie makes a good strawberry pie. After I licked the plate clean of lemon meringue, I just had to try the strawberry — even though I was full to the gills. The opportunity to have her home baked goods was few and far between. I couldn’t pass it up. Don’t worry, I got a new plate (just in case you were wondering).

          “Isn’t the hotel our grandparents used to own here in Thompson?” I asked.

          “It’s right up the road there,” Carmen answered. “When you get to the intersection go straight through and it’s by the tracks.”

          “The salesmen would get off the train and stay at the hotel,” Rosemary said. “I don’t know if the stable is still there or not, but Grandpa used to hire himself out and take them on their rounds.”

          Lorraine laughed. “He didn’t just rent them a horse? He actually drove them?”

          “That’s right. The original Uber driver,” Rosemary answered and we all laughed.

          Once Mike and I left we headed for home. I know I haven’t said anything about Bondi this whole time but don’t think I didn’t call a half dozen times to check on her!

          “She’s doing fine,” Miss Rosie told me every time. “She peed on the kitchen floor but that’s alright.”

          I suspected there would be a learning curve.

          “She went to the door a lot of times,” Lamar told me. “But I think it was because she wanted to go home.”

          Bondi is a smart little dog and could find her way home from the Kipps' house.

          Miss Rosie told me that Bondi just about lived in her lap, and she didn’t mind a bit. At bedtime, Bondi got down under the covers, went to their feet, and slept all night long.

          “I’ve got some pictures of her stay to show you,” Miss Rosie said.

          And I’ve got more road pictures for you!

          This is the hotel our grandparents used to own. No one’s living there now.

          “We should buy it and put it back in the family,” I told Mike.

          “Yeah. No.”

          This is the train station across the road. Looks like it’s an ice cream shop now.

          The Tunkhannock Viaduct. It’s called that because it crosses the Tunkhannock Creek but it’s at Nicholson.

          Getting closer.     

                               

         Look how little the houses are!

          At one point in our travels, we passed a long barn that was no longer in use.

          “What do you think?” Mike asked. “Pigs or chickens?”

          “Yeah.” Then I thought of what Mike always says. “They got gas money and don’t have to raise chigs or pickens —" I stopped, realizing I’d just switched the first part of the words. It’s never planned and always surprises me when it happens.

          On the radio the other day I heard a guy talking about food and water and he did the same thing. Wood and fater. He stopped halfway through and corrected himself. I had to smile. I’m not the only one with a mixed up brain!

We picked Bondi up and I have to say, she didn’t seem all that excited to see me! She didn’t pee on me or nothin’!

At home, we unpacked and as I was putting my radio, pillow, and pillow speaker back on my bed, I was surprised to see my pee-jammas weren’t there! I thought I’d packed them! I have no idea where I’ve lost them.

PJs aren’t the only thing I’ve lost.

I set a mouse trap before we left. I put it on my craft counter, way back behind a post where the cats wouldn’t get hurt on it. I checked it and it’s gone! Just gone!

“Do you think one of the cats heard it go off and got it?” I asked Mike but of course he didn’t know.

I looked everywhere for it! But I have to tell you. It looks mighty funny-spicious to me that Tiger puked up mouse fur at one o’clock in the morning!

When I stumble across the trap, I’ll let you know where I found it.

I was so tired our first night home that when my five-a.m. alarm went off to take my pill, I shut it off and went back to sleep.

“I think I heard you take it,” Mike said, but I don’t think I did.

After I finished writing Forget It? I printed a copy, hooked Bondi up, and walked down to the Kipps.

          My volunteer crocus is blooming, weeks after everyone else’s has bloomed.

          A flash of red embedded in our road catches my eye as I strode past. I went back and snapped this picture.

          The neighbors’ shed blew over and it’s completely upside down.

          I turn Bondi loose when I get to the edge of the Kipps’ yard. She runs up to the door and barks to be let in.

          Miss Rosie loved on Bondi ...

.... while I scrolled through the pictures they took.

          We are truly blessed to have such good neighbors.

          Let’s call this one done!