Throughout my forays into creative writing, I have, for a number of reasons, kept my writing and academic selves in separate boxes.

First of all, academic and creative writing are rather different animals, with distinct sets of rules and freedoms (or lack thereof). My academic writing sometimes skews a bit loose, not because it lacks rigor or I’ve not done my research, but rather because, as one stuffy older (male) colleague once told me at a conference, I was having “a bit too much fun.” I have yet to understand why enjoying one’s research should be a bad thing, though I suspect it had something to do with me poking fun at elderly French kings…which, admittedly, may lack the serious, allegedly objective tone usually associated with academic writing.

The reverse is also true. Thanks to that strong set of research skills, I invariably have more information than I can ever hope to include in my creative work, whether fiction or non-fiction. I don’t have to expound upon all I have learned about the Atlantic hurricane season, dam removal, or climate change. The research should support my voice, my story. It’s not supposed to overwhelm it.

Neither of those factors, however, fully explains why I prefer to separate my academic and creative work. The real, deep reason is that academia has become a hard place, and it gets harder with each passing year, especially for those of us with one foot mired in administrative tasks. At the end of a hard day or a harder week, my creative practice has become my refuge, my respite.

That’s not to say I don’t still enjoy my work—the students especially inspire me to show up each day, despite the fact that thanks to COVID, LLMs, and myriad other factors, they seem each year more unprepared to enter the hallowed halls in which I’ve shaped my career. And yet I live for those lightbulb moments when they learn something about language or about themselves—sometimes both—that I know will stay with them long after my class, maybe even after graduation.

My gift, I think, is that of making space for these emerging adults to show up as their whole selves, whichever accents they have in whichever languages they happen to speak. So many are concerned about their “country” or “foreign” accents or that they simply won’t sound good in French or Spanish, the languages I teach. That’s when I call attention to my own U.S. accent, one that might sometimes sound more “standard” (whatever that means), but in fact can sound equally out of place…if I let it, which I am learning not to do. In the 75 minutes they’re in my class, I hope they can learn that too.

Which brings me back to writing and the illusion of separateness. I can hold my creative practice and my paid work each in its own time and place, but they are all part of the package that is me. The farm girl is the student is the professor is the department chair is the mother is the Mimi is the writer who shows up on this Substack most weeks. She also happens to be Ruth Dennis’s granddaughter.1

This is one of five dates from 1998 for which I do not have a copy of Ruth’s column. And so I’m making the rest of this a paid post, with a preview of the opening of a hermit crab essay in which I use the five “W” questions posed by journalists to take a closer look at my grandmother’s work on Hurricane Agnes and the aftermath.

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This morning, I woke to bright sun pushing out the remnants of showers and lingering river fog. I poured myself a cup of coffee and read from Ada Limón’s latest book of poetry, then daydreamed about the day ahead. I felt alert, ready to work. I could do laundry, start drafting a long-overdue book review, read some more, and of course, write this week’s Substack.

I wondered what Ruth and I would write about this week. Ever since I embarked on the project of sharing Ruth’s columns through a single calendar year, I’ve mostly let myself be guided by whatever she writes. At first, I read ahead to see what was coming and let my mind marinate, but lately I’ve been letting myself be surprised by whatever I find and treating it like a prompt for an off-the-cuff mini-essay that introduces readers to that week’s installment of my grandmother’s writing.

First, though, morning mediation and a walk in the blissfully cool air, a welcome change from what has lately been an April so warm I feared we’d skipped spring. As I left my bedroom, I noticed the open front door. Apparently, I’d forgotten to lock it. Apparently, it wasn’t even latched.

I opened it wider and two of my cats, Leo and Zoboo burst in, tails puffed out, coats big and wild. (My third cat, Minette, is far too elderly and queenlike to move from the armchair from which she reigns.) While I was grateful to see Leo, who likes to pretend he’s feral once he’s out the door, my dog Nino was nowhere in sight. I wish I could say this surprised me.

Although Nino is a rescue of unknown pedigree, my vet friend Tanya thinks he is probably part Shiba Inu, complete with foxlike ears, floofy curled tail, feline behaviors, extensive vocalizations, and the capacity to run and run and run, and when he’s done with that, run some more. Though he learned most of his dog school commands reasonably well, he does not do “come,” not even for peanut butter. I read somewhere once that Shiba Inus are 90% sass and 10% fur. This strikes me as accurate, though now that we’re in shedding season, I might put it closer to 80-20.

By the time I caught him, washed him clean of whatever dead thing he’d rolled in, and walked him to help air dry all that fur, the morning was pretty much gone, taking with it my patience and any hope of getting even half my list done.

It was therefore an even greater joy to find that Ruth’s column consists entirely of fond memories, namely of musicals and her love for the Big Apple. I think we can all be grateful that during this week in 1998, her brother filled her home—and now yours and mine—with the gift of music. Between pets on the lam and a world on fire,1 it feels good to dwell in the world of nostalgia and imagination.

@adventuresinshibaShiba Inus are escape artists. Zoji found a weak point in the fence and ran out, and then the other two followed. Gone into nature. Running and searching and finally we found them and got them into the car.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

A Surprise Package

A “surprise package” from my brother in Indiana that came in the mail last week brought me a present of music and memories that will last and last.

Last summer when we were together in Kenmore with my other brother and his family, the topic of musicals and show tunes came up. We each began recalling our favorites, some more than a generation old. I remarked that I had some of my favorites on record but no “working record player.” I did have a tape player, I added.

My brother who has countless tape cassettes, said he would send me a few of his after he got back to Indiana. I had long since forgotten this until his package arrived.

I played each one, right after another and the memories of seeing each of these shows either on the stage or in the movies came flooding back. I chose no order in that first “afternoon concert.”

I decided to begin with “Music Man” since that was the first Broadway show we had taken our boys to see. We all saw the film as well but it was on Broadway that we first met Harold Hill and “Marian, the librarian.” Whenever I hear “Seventy-Six Trombones” I want to march along with the rhythm and the music. I feel a bit of romance whenever I hear “Till There Was You” and “Goodnight My Someone.” When a barbershop quartet sings “Lida Rose,” I close my eyes and I am back in that theater. Robert Preston was our first “Music Man,” but I can renew memories and enjoy the music whether it is performed as a high school musical or as part of “summer stock.”

“On the Town” was my next selection. I remembered seeing the film with my husband and delighting in the adventures of Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelley, two sailors on leave in “the big city.” The music not only renewed my memories of the film but of my long standing love affair with Manhattan.

This began in my mid-teens when my aunt and uncle took me into New Yolk City for a day and an evening when our family was vacationing with grandparents in Connecticut. I was excited and tried to see everything possible in that short time. I knew that I would be back. It took a couple of years and then there were several days in “The City” during the 1939 World’s Fair. My one brother and I were given free time to explore while our father was at his company’s display at the Fair.2 Years later when my husband and I would take the boys to New York, we gave them free time “within limitations.” I shudder to think what would happen to them now with such freedom if they were still boys.

Listening to “New York, New York - It’s a Wonderful Town,” some of my best memories came rushing back. It was on our honeymoon that I introduced my husband to the wonders of New York City. Radio City, the Roxy, the Automat, the subway, the magic of Times Square—we did it all. For years “our song” was “I’ll Take Manhattan.”

The tape “Mr. President” reminded me of the weekends during the years we were on “The Tribune” and when our boys were grown. My husband and I would take a spontaneous trip to “The City.” Saturday mornings we would go from theater to theater to see if two tickets were available for the evening show. On one of these weekends our inquiry resulted in two tickets for “Mr. President.” As we started to leave, my husband said, “I don’t know if we will like this show but we have got tickets.” A woman crossing the foyer tuned and with a smile said, “I’m sure you will enjoy your evening.” We did indeed enjoy the show and its star Nanette Fabray—whom we had met so briefly that morning.

The musical itself was based on the concept of life in the White House—some of which is very different now. It all seemed reminiscent of the “Truman Years,” especially of the daughter’s wish to be free of the Secret Service and of the words and music “It Gets Lonely in the White House.”

My afternoon with my gift of show tapes was far from over. Next came “Guys and Dolls” which I had seen at ArtPark two summers ago with my brother and family. I had seen the movie and at least one school production but it was the live theater that I remembered best. Listening to “Luck Be A Lady,” “Sit Down, You’re Rocking The Boat,” “A Bushel and A Peck,” in my mind I could see the actors and the action clearly.

“The Unsinkable Molly Brown” was a favorite movie and a favorite record played many times to retell over and over the story of Molly Brown, the girl from the mines, her newfound wealth and her efforts to become part of Denver’s “High Society.” Her heroism when the Titanic sank has become a part of history—and a part of the movie “Titanic.” The film has regenerated an interest in the Molly Brown Museum in Denver.

Listening to the boisterous “I Ain’t Down Yet” and the wistful “My Own Brass Bed, I not only remembered seeing the film but my admiration of the spunk of the real-life Molly Brown.

The fifth and last tape I selected was the music from “No, No Nanette,” a musical film of the ‘30s complete with spectacular dance numbers, a simple but entertaining love story. Each had a song or two that is still familiar when heard. “Tea For Two” and “I Want to be Happy,” both from “No, No, Nanette” are a sample of these,

I am not at all certain that I saw the movie - it would have been so long ago. But we, my husband and I, did see a live performance at Melody Fair. Again, it was my brother and family who took us to the evening show. What made this event so memorable was that Ruby Keeler was the lead performer. She had been a film idol of mine. I had a scrapbook filled with articles and photos from her musicals with Dick Powell and with her husband Al Jolson.3

Of course she was much, much older but she could still tap dance and her magic could be felt by all of her audience. Most of us left humming much of the music.

I have and will continue to play these tapes over and over. Each time there will be special memories to recall as I listen to their music.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Sunday Spectator.

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Saturday, I woke from one of those too-real dreams that in a way, is worse than a nightmare, the kind where all your worries get together and have a party so wild that when you wake up, you still feel tired. I knew I needed a mental and spiritual reset, and the thing that does that best is hiking. I’d been thinking about trying a new trail over in Big South Fork and the weather was gorgeous, so I decided to go for it.

After one misadventure in which I put too much faith in GPS and ended up on someone’s private property in a hollow (pronounced “holler”), and another in which I failed to find parking at the trailhead, I decided maybe I should turn around and find a trail a bit closer to home. One of the many gifts of living in southeast Kentucky is that I have those in abundance.

And so I ended up in the Daniel Boone National Forest, taking my own sweet time wandering along Laurel Creek. The trail is both well-maintained and the opposite of crowded, exactly what I needed after my night of unrestful sleep. I ended up not going far, less than a mile out. Instead, I found a place to sit where I could listen to water and watch the life surrounding me on every side. A deer, startled to find a human, turned and bounded over the ridge. A squirrel scuttled through the understory and up a tree. Off to my right, then to my left, a pileated woodpecker let loose his echoing cuk-cuk-cuk.

Then there were the plants. Plants clinging to rocks, poking through dead leaves, nourishing themselves on rotting stumps and windfall. Violets. Bluets. Rhododendrons with buds about to be full-blown blossoms. The strange, almost animalistic shape of unfurling ferns. Patterned leaves I later learned are called rattlesnake plantain. Then, perhaps most magical of all, lady’s slipper orchids.

I live so far south of where I was raised that spring comes to me a few weeks before it reaches folks back home. A friend said today on Facebook that my pictures help her remember spring is on its way. Given that it snowed in parts of New York State just last week, I am glad to help. To judge by Ruth’s words on this day in 1998, she would have felt the same.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

April is a tease. It is a time when I am the most impatient, impatient with nature.

The willow along my creek is changing colors from the first tints of yellow to green. The aspen trees across the highway are beginning to leaf out with a delicate shade of green. The snowball bush is budded. The basswood tree which is always one of the first trees around my home to leaf out (it also is one of the first to become bare in the fall) is on the brink of full buds.

The lawn is a bright green and is growing. I am beginning to think “it won’t be too long before it will need mowing.”1 The daffodils have been budded for what seems an eternity although it has only been two weeks. The tulips are up and the bleeding heart bushes grow an inch every few days.

All of these and many more are signs of spring and all that April brings each year. But each and every sign increases my impatience.

Why does it take so long for the maples and oaks to leaf out into a canopy of green across the back of my yard? Why haven’t the daffodils been bright yellow sooner? Why is the ground still too cold and too wet to plant the annuals? Why is there still the danger and the reality of frost?

I am impatient almost beyond belief to begin “real gardening.” For a few years I attributed this impatience to leaving Florida with its flowers in full bloom, its fresh vegetables on the roadside stand and returning to a “brown world”—one with snow on the hills and no sign of spring.

But April has always been a tease to me. At the beginning of January each year I count off the weeks until April first. At that time April first seems to be a milestone—an instant change into green and gardening.

Now it is almost the middle of the month and my impatience remains. My family tells me “it is too early, just be patient. In a month (or more) it will be time to begin your vegetable garden, to plant the petunias.”

“Patience may be a virtue,” according to an old proverb that my mother used to tell me. But I have never been a very patient person about anything. April is a tease that tries my patience. Still it is a time of change, a time of nature’s awakening from winter. I will have to cultivate patience with the reality of April.

I am also a contradiction of another proverb that my mother used to quote, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today,” she would tell me in an effort to motivate me to complete a task or even a homework assignment.

Somehow I have cultivated to a very high degree the opposite of this adage. I am full of “things I am going to do today” when I wake up. Some of these have been planned even the night before. Others have been on my “to do” list for several days. This capacity to “put off” begins in January and continues throughout April.

At the start of winter, I set goals to accomplish before April ends. One of these for several years has been to “work on my mystery novel—perhaps to even complete the first draft.” The many sheets of paper, some handwritten and some that have been written on the computer, are again read and placed in order. The plot has been developed and the chapters outlined. The characters need developing.

This winter I did spend some time leaning about each of the main characters that were part of my story. But there were so many days when I had “other things to do” that Margaret and Anne, Donald and David were put aside.

Maybe even before next winter, I will stop “putting off” and finish my book. Perhaps I need an actual deadline since that is what motivates me the most.2 When I can no longer “put off” a news release, answering a repeated request, or replying to a message on the answering machine, I respond.

“Rural Reflections” are started Sunday evenings. That is if I have some idea about their subject matter. When nothing comes to mind, I “put it off” until Monday morning. But some Monday mornings an unexpected task must be completed first.

I can “put off” only so long and then it is Tuesday morning with the deadline of “before the mail comes.”3 Fortunately I do not face this “crisis” each week since I know there are times when it is better to “do it today.”

This “Rural Reflection” is being written on the computer Monday morning—from notes I made Sunday evening.

April is a tease for me in that it tries my pattern of “putting off.” At the beginning of the week, I tell myself, “I will get the bedroom and office curtains washed, ironed and hung back up.” Or I will set a goal “to get my closet cleaned out.” There are many more “I wills” and a large percentage of them get “put off,” at least for another week.

It is almost like having a writing “deadline” to motivate to the point of accomplishment. When April is almost over I realize that I must tame my impatience to garden and tackle those “to do” spring cleaning projects.

There may even come a rainy afternoon when I bring the photo album up to date. There are all those holiday pictures still in envelopes stuffed in the front of the album, waiting for me. There are many other activities I had planned to complete before April. Most of these have been “put off.”

As I consider my basic tendencies of impatience and of being able to “put it off,” I recognize my contradictions, contradictions that April teases.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Sunday Spectator.

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One spring break when I was a teen, I flew to Florida to visit my childhood best friend who had moved in middle school, then spend time with my grandparents who spent their winters “snowbirding” near Tampa. While I cherish most of my memories of that trip, from the Key Lime pie, to the beach, to a morning spent in an art museum, one thing I did not love was driving past the remains of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge. I already was not a fan of bridges, choosing to close my eyes and clench my fists when we would cross to Niagara Falls or the Thousand Islands, for example. Seeing the missing span of this bridge only gave credence to my fears. My grandfather, on the other hand, a fan of what he saw as a good laugh, invariably made some wisecrack or pretended to turn to cross it every time it came in view. I, just as invariably, was not amused.

Although my anti-bridge feeling never fully goes away—I prefer, for example, not to think about how high up I am when my car crosses above the Kentucky River on I-75, and I avoid the double-decker Brent Spence Bridge in Cincinnati—I’m not sure that my feelings qualify as a full-blown phobia. I have successfully crossed all these bridges, after all, or else I would not be sitting here in my study writing. In fact, I’ve even crossed Cincinnati’s Purple People and John A. Roebling Bridges on my own two feet, not just once but multiple times. Do I stay resolutely in the middle of the walkway, refusing to get close to the edge on either side? You bet I do. But I get across.

As longtime readers of this Substack know, Bob and Ruth loved to travel. This they always did by car, which meant they crossed their own share of bridges (and I’m not even talking about the metaphorical kind). Bridges, and absent those, a ferry. Given the choice, it seems Ruth would prefer the former, as we see in her column from this day back in 1998, where her reflections begin with memories of a trolley.

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Steuben County Historical Society

Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Clang, clang, clang went the trolley

A segment on last Sunday’s Charles Osgood morning show evoked memories of long ago. One of the features was about the “rebirth of the trolley car” in New Orleans. This, according to the reporter, was being done as a tourist attraction. He did, however, show pictures and tell of those days when the trolley was a major form of intercity transportation.

My first recollection on hearing and seeing this report was Judy Garland singing “Clang, clang, clang went the trolley” in one of her movies. Then I remembered the trolley lines in Buffalo and riding them. Most of the time it was the bus that took me downtown to shop, to go to the movies and then to work during summer break from college. The bus ride was almost always routine. The occasions when I had to change buses were rare and sometimes a challenge if I was going to an unfamiliar part of the city.

It was those infrequent trolley rides that were always “an adventure.” Then the news came that the trolley lines were being taken up and the trolleys would travel no more. I was about to leave to get married and move to “the country” when I realized my youngest brother had never ridden on a trolley. I took the time to give him a trolley ride into downtown Buffalo and back to the city line. It was a very special time for both of us.

The many ways we traveled, first with my parents and then with my family, came back in memory. I wonder how many young people and children have ever ridden on a railroad train except for those “excursion” ones?

Growing up, family travel was by automobile. I have a few photos of my parents standing next to their first car. We went by car on vacation and on those Sunday afternoon rides into the country.

We walked to school, we walked to the local movie house, we walked to the grocery store or meat market doing errands for our mother, we walked to the “Five and Ten” for our shopping, we walked to Sunday school and church.

In today’s world it is by driving that we can get to these places. For those who live “in town” some of these schools, churches, post offices, etc. can be reached by walking but for most of us it is by car.

I thought about those ferry rides, most of which have also gone the way of the trolley cars. My parents had friends on Grand Island that we used to visit, usually in the summer. We had to take the ferry to cross the Niagara River and reach the Island. Then, the Grand Island bridges were built and the ferry no longer operated. We were impressed by the bridges and appreciative of the ease in traveling since there was no more need to check the ferry schedule.

I remember on one vacation when my sons were young that we even crossed the James River in Virginia on a ferry that was poled across. I was extremely apprehensive about the entire trip that took only a very few minutes and made certain our return route was entirely “by land.”

On another vacation to visit our son in the Marines at Parris Island, we took the Chesapeake Bay ferry. Again I was more than apprehensive. I was squeamish, a condition that the other boys and my husband said was “just nerves.”

Now there is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel that we could see when camping at Seashore State Park. It was startling at night to watch the lights of the automobiles and then to see them disappear, only to come back up into view as they cane closer to us. I still have not traveled this way, but maybe someday I will have the opportunity.

Then I remembered that ferry ride from Bar Harbor to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. My husband assured me it would be “just like an ocean trip.” Perhaps it was just like one, but not for me. I was even more squeamish on this ferry boat ride. To my astonishment I and most of the passengers were not alone. My husband had succumbed too. We were both so very glad to drive our truck camper out of “the belly” of the ferry onto land—land that did not go up and down and up and down. We toured a part of Nova Scotia and found a way to drive back to Bar Harbor. And so we did.

I continued my Sunday morning reflections remembering New York subway rides. I had a deep fear that the doors would close before all of the family was on. I was overwhelmed by Grand Central Station itself and the challenge of finding the right track for our subway trip.

It has been about three years since I have been in New York City. Visiting my sister and brother-in-law in Briarcliff, we took Metro North into the City. A good share of this ride is underground just like the subway. Passing each subway station I remembered the many times we had taken the boys “to the city” and visited the park, museums, airport and other attractions by subway.

I was as overwhelmed by Grand Central Station and the hordes of people coming and going as I had always been. I followed my sister’s repeated instructions to “hurry up or we won’t get a seat on our train.”

She added, “if you don’t hurry, we can miss our train and then have to wait almost half an hour for the next one.” With that threat in mind, I did hurry down the flight of stairs for ground level and across the wide station expanse, catching up with my sister, and waiting for the train to arrive only a very few minutes later.

I had enjoyed that day and the one that followed in “the City” and quickly learned to move fast when the bus comes lumbering down the busy street or when a cab slows up and can be hailed. Fortunately travel by train, bus and cab in Manhattan was routine for my sister. It would have been a challenge I might not have been able to meet if I were alone or with someone equally unfamiliar with these patterns getting around.

The Sunday morning television program was ending. It was time to get ready for church. But that evening I remembered once more the trolley rides, the ferry boat trips, the subways and the city buses. Almost at the same time I looked out to see two tractor-trailers headed west, a car going towards Jasper and one headed for Greenwood or beyond. Then came the clop, clop, clop of the horse and buggy. My Amish neighbors were coming home.

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We made it into April and now our bodies and our daily patterns are beginning to adjust to “Daylight Savings Time.” Somehow it takes more than a dry or even two to make tip that hour we “lost.” Still, the longer twilights will soon make up for this change of time. It happens every first Sunday in April.1 But we will get back that hour in the fall.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator

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To be fair, there is actually not a lot to say about what it takes to complete a book. I mean there is…but it’s mostly butt-in-chair time, to quote Anne Lamott. That, and lots of paper. Also index cards, scissors, highlighters, and colored pens, because revising and editing often required literal re-visioning of both individual essays and the entire book.

Fast-forward to Tip 6 (6’45) for Lamott’s advice on writing. Paid content continues below.

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When snow comes at an inopportune time (I’m looking at you, Monday and Tuesday of spring break!) it can be easy to sink all the way down into a dark mood. We don’t have to stay there, though. In fact, we probably don’t even need to go there in the first place.

Because I am hoping to publish a paid post mid-week, that’s all you’ll hear from me for now. I’m turning it over to Ruth, who on this day in 1998 wrote of sports, spring snow, and the delight of consuming summer fruit in winter. May you find your version of “blizzard berries” to help carry you through.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

A late snow, and great basketball

The words and melodies of two songs go through my mind as I write this column Monday morning.

It truly is “A Winter Wonderland”. The sky is blue with puffy white clouds here and there. The ground is covered with several inches of very white, clean snow. The branches on the pines on the nearby hillsides are still heavy with snow. The trees closer have dropped much of the snow that clung to them Saturday and Sunday.

The temperature never reached the near zero level and there was little if any mention of “wind chill” on the detailed weather forecasts. The really gusty winds remained “brisk” instead.

Now this morning, the icicles hanging from the metal awnings over the windows are glistening with the sunlight on them even as they drip, drip, drip.

Saturday and even late Friday we were gripped by this late winter storm. Sunday morning we were greeted by “Christmas Card scenery.” Even when the heavy snow showers came and went it was still “pretty-but.”

As I watched the snow pile up Saturday I remembered the “Blizzard Berries” in the freezer. Every summer I pick the wild red raspberries that grow along my hedgerow. Some summers the yield is slimmer than others but I pick as many and as much as I can. Some of the berries are eaten as dessert that day and in the next day or two. The rest, if only a cupful to each half-pint bag, are stored in the freezer. These are the “Blizzard Berries” to be taken out and eaten during a major snowstorm. I had eaten one bag of these special packages of berries during the snowstorm right after Christmas. I had almost forgotten that there were at least two more packages in the freezer.

So, this past weekend I have had a raspberry sundae, Jello with raspberries, and raspberries on two bowls of cereal. I am hoping that the rest of last summer’s wild raspberries will provide me with a spring treat instead of being “Blizzard Berries.”

Even as we moaned about last weekend’s snowstorm, we reminded ourselves that “it had not been a hard winter.” We also thought about those families in Georgia and North Carolina who, during this same weekend, had homes blown away and loved ones killed by tornadoes. “We have nothing to complain about,” was said and heard throughout the weekend.

And the words and melody of that other song, “Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year” kept going through my head. Yes, I was the one who was cheerfully counting the days until April first, the one who wrote in an earlier March column, “two down, one to go.” Both are still true—April first is only days away and it soon will be “three down.” Still, it was “The First day of Spring” just before the weekend snowstorm.

It was “A Winter Wonderland” and “Spring Will Be A Little Late This Year”—well hopefully for a very short time.

On a completely different note 🏀

Our J-T wildcats are second in the state and we are all so very proud of them. Many, many went to Glens Falls by bus or by car to cheer “their boys” as they played in the state final. Just about everyone left back home sat by their radios to hear the broadcasts.

From the beginning of the season we had followed the team if not in the stands for the actual games then by media coverage. Usually we had known already “who won the game?” The question would be asked in the late evening or early morning since these boys were “our team.”

Many of us do not know any of the team members personally but we know their parents or grandparents. Jasper and Troupsburg are closely knit communities and are even closer since J-T school events came into our daily lives.1

Support for the final games came from throughout the county. The team was met on its return from Glens Falls with a delegation of fire trucks, cars with horns blaring and a car from the sheriff’s department and another from the state police to escort the procession. “Go Wildcats” was the cheer from Hornell to Addison and beyond. “Second In The State” with the added over and over again comment, “We think you are great.”

High school basketball has a different image than college and pro basketball. Yes, many high school teams play a more physical game. Yes, players in some high schools do not graduate. Yes, some—even many—are hoping for a college scholarship because of their basketball achievements.

Yet, there are many winning teams that are just that—a team that plays together, helping each other to score and paying little attention to who has the most baskets, the most assists, the most rebounds. Perhaps that is why high school basketball has its own image.

“March Madness” is ending with the NCAA finals. Once Syracuse had been defeated, I lost most interest in the competition. I did find a degree of allegiance for UConn since I once lived in Connecticut. And I inwardly cheered for Valparaiso–the “Cinderella Team” even though I knew their chances of getting to the “Final Four” were almost nil.

Once again I felt good that the TV sponsors recognized the top “Academic Achiever” from each of the college teams as well as naming the top players from each team. Listening to the requirements for high school graduates to play on a college basketball team including graduation, a score level for SATs and a grade level, I also recognized the standards most of the players had to meet.

Yes, I know there are different methods of recruiting for college teams, that many team players drop out of college to “turn pro”. There are coaches and players that are unsportsmanlike and who concentrate on winning at any cost.

Players on the professional teams receive salaries beyond our comprehension. There are “the good guys and the bad guys”. For every Dennis Rodman there is a Larry Bird. (Yes. I know I am mixing years in this analogy.)

Spring may be a little late and high school basketball season has ended. But the daffodil bulbs are peeking through, the geraniums in the window are blossoming, the high school track practice is well underway and Saturday I watched my first baseball game of the season on TV. Granted, it was an Atlanta Braves-Detroit Tigers exhibition game but it was baseball.2

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Sunday Spectator

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As I was finishing up the full draft of my book for its first round of outside edits, I decided to do a random Google search to see if it kicked up any more of Ruth’s writing. I do this from time to time, just to see if anything has become available that I don’t yet have, but it had been a while.1

This time, I put in something along the lines of “Dennis writing Southern Tier,” as I had many times before. This time, however, I got a new result. Someone named Ryan Dennis had written Barn Gothic, a memoir about dairy farming in Canaseraga, which is also located in Steuben County. I found a copy of the audiobook in Hoopla2 and listened any time I was not working on my own book.3 When I finished, I did another Google search, found his website, and reached out. We exchanged a couple emails, during which he generously offered to help promote my book in the online lit mag he runs when the time comes.

At first, I did not think we were related (Dennis is one of those names in Steuben county, kind of like Moses is in the Kentucky county where I live now), but after more digging on Ancestry, I’m pretty sure we’re fifth cousins, once removed. There are a lot of other synchronicities too, but I won’t bore readers with listing them here. Instead, I will urge readers to check out Ryan’s book and then turn this over to Ruth, who on this day in 1998 wrote about many of the same things my distant cousin and I do in the 2020s. It may be years since either of us have lived on a farm, but neither of us would be who we are today without all those formative years of farm life.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Milk, mud and giant asteroids—food for thought

Global tomorrows, milk prices, the value of mud, dangers from outer space—these were all part of my reflections last weekend when I began to write this Sunday’s column.

Last week, March 15-22 was designated National Agricultural Week with the theme of “Global Tomorrow.” Agriculture Day was observed as it is every year on the first day of spring—March 20 this year.

The emphasis for the 1998 Ag Week was to focus on global challenges to meet the needs for food and fiber now and in the future. Rapid world population which is expected to reach 7.9 billion by the year 2020 along with increasing wealth in the developing nations put a greater pressure on American famers. Joyce Spitcherm, chairperson of the Agriculture Council of America which coordinates Ag Day, is quoted in the current issue of “Country Folks” saying “American agriculture is up to the challenge.” She added, “from technology to innovative cultural practices, American agriculture is working hard with an eye to the future. It is an industry that is “Growing Tomorrows.”

Further comments in this issue of “Country Folks” written by its editor, warns: “Size of farms may produce greater efficiencies but care must be taken to balance production with good management to all points of a farm operation. The front page editorial continued: “smaller farms, well managed and maintained continue to achieve the greatest amount of agricultural production in our nation and continue to play a vital role in the rural economy of this nation.”

“Ag Day” and “National Agricultural Week” do not generate the many local and area special events that they did only a few years ago. Even though this week has passed we all, urban, suburban or rural, need to recognize the contribution of our farm population and their challenge of “Growing Tomorrows.”

The same issue of “Country Folks” had several articles about the “Northeast Dairy Compact” and the efforts to add New York State into this milk pricing formula. The State senate has passed the enabling legislation and Governor Pataki has said he will sign a bill if it is passed by the State Assembly.

The media has been presenting opposing views on this Northeast Dairy Compact which adds a local premium based on Northeast production costs to the federal milk price order. The predictions of a major increase in milk prices for consumers if the Dairy Compact is enacted in New York State have been emphasized in metropolitan centers, especially in New York City. In an “Open Letter to Members of the New York State Assembly” Sieds Jonker, chairman of the Montgomery Dairy Advisory Committee writes, “Today the price of a gallon of ‘Compact’ priced milk in stores is identical to that of non-compact priced milk in New York City stores.”

In another article in “Country Folks” the December increase in the dairy farmers’ blend price in New York State was 40 cents per cent. The increase for the same period under the Northeast Dairy Compact was 72 cents percent, according to the report.

Matthew Shulman writes in the same issue of “Country Folks,” “The fate of New York State’s 8,900 dairy farmers depends on urban legislators.” He notes farmers occupy 7,700,000 acres of open land and 1,700,000 of woodland and wetland, adding, “That’s 26 per cent of New York state”—land that produces food and economic benefits for the entire state as well as providing protection for upstate watersheds (that serve metropolitan areas).

Commenting that the “25 percent decline” is due partly to the aging farm population, which reflects the high cost of capital cost for a young farmer to start a new farm. “But the largest reason is that New York milk prices are set by a formula largely based on west coast productions cost,” he writes, warning “New York State dairy farms cannot survive is their revenue is consistently below the costs of production.”

There are pros and cons on this issue— an issue which affects not only dairy farmers and their families but suburban and urban families and communities as well. A healthy farm economy is vital to the economy of the entire state.

As I reflected on this complicated Dairy Compact milk pricing issue, I realized while I really didn’t know very much about it, it is a concern that cannot be completely ignored.

Mud—March mud. Although the mud on the dirt road and paths was covered briefly with snow, the mud will and has returned. Mud is an unavoidable part of spring. Jean T. Walsh, writing her weekly column “The Mohawk Valley Shepherd” (in the current issue of “Country Folks”) suggests that New York Stale would be a contender for top honors in any sectional or even national contest to determine the worst mud.

She has several ideas for “creativity using our unlimited and yearly renewable mud resources,” such as a tourism promotion with prizes for mud sculptures, mud lotteries with the winner being able to haul away as much mud as he wants, a state-wide contest in the schools for the best use of mud.

Wiping the mud off my boots for the fifth time during one day last week, I cussed it. But I was only one person tracking the mud in. I remembered those days when the boys and their father tracked gobs and gobs of mud into the kitchen several limes each day. I remembered the beef cattle standing in the muddy barnyard as we all wished for drier weather. I remembered being summoned to help with one of these cows and losing first one and then the other boot into the mud. My comments were very vocal and not at all “ladylike.”

Outer space dangers became very real for us last week—at least for about 24 hours. Scientific predictions were made that a giant asteroid would collide with our earth on a specific day and time.

Forecasts of worldwide destruction in the same manner as when another asteroid hit the earth and destroyed almost all of it, including the dinosaurs—all of this invoked Biblical predictions as well as horror forecasts beyond description. Many of us reasoned, “well, I won’t be alive then, so I am not going to think about it.” It was only seconds later that the realization our grandchildren would “be around” that aroused a “Chicken Little” instinct. Would the “sky be falling” and was this warning premature or should it be taken seriously?

The next day we learned that the scientific measurements were reevaluated. We were safe.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator.

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Sometimes, when I read Ruth’s old columns, I think she would look at the world today and spin in her grave. Other times, I wish I could talk to her, try to glean some wisdom from her as my elder, something that much to my shame and regret, I too often failed to do. Still others, I feel both things. This is one of those times. To see what I mean, read her thoughts on journalism, published on this day in 1998.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

‘What’s news?’ Well, here are a few answers

What’s news? Recently, when I was asked to have the program for the Canisteo Rotary Club meeting, I was asked this very question.1

When we greet someone we haven’t seen in some time we often ask, “What’s new?” The answers can range from a new baby, a change in jobs, a coming move to a new location, retirement plans—these are replies to “what’s new?”

As I prepared some notes for the Rotary talk, I selected the different question of “What’s news?” Except for a few high school and college journalism classes and brief stints on school newspapers I was not confronted with this question until I began writing for “The Evening Tribune” and “The Canisteo Times” as a correspondent for Jasper.

I had been taught the basic who, what, where, why, when and how (not necessarily in that order). But as correspondent I steered clear of some of these basics. My reporting was about “who went where, who visited whom, etc.” These personal columns about every community, no matter how small, were often the most read news in the weekly newspapers. The daily newspapers did not rely so heavily on them but included portions of these “local happenings”.

“What’s news?” A two year stint as editor of “The Canisteo Times” gave me a different perspective—one that was instilled through the years that followed as a reporter, feature writer, columnist.

“What’s news?” is presented in the first paragraph or two of the news story written and filed with the editor. This “lead”2 tells the reader who, when, where, what, as well as how and why.

“What’s news?” Several reporters from various media can be covering the same event but may write lead paragraphs that differ according to their interpretation of what should come first. Is it the “why”, the “when”?

“What’s news?” can differ from the local viewpoint to that of the regional or metropolitan newspaper.

“What’s news?” The reporter and his editor may have different replies. I have filed news stories that I was sure merited front page and a byline. But if there were more major news events, my story was often on the inside page, maybe even in the left-hand bottom corner.

A reporter soon learns that they do not write the headline for their news stories. The editor makes the decisions as to what is the most important fact in the “lead” as well as what will invite the reader to the news story.

“What’s news?” How does the reporter find the news and how does he write it? When we (my husband and I) edited “The Canisteo Times”, there were occasions when one of us would tell the other, “Go out on Main Street and do—SOMETHING. We don’t have a lead story for this week and we are getting close to deadline.”

When we joined the staff of “The Evening Tribune” we were often assigned to cover an event, a meeting, or to get an interview. We were also to go out and find a news story on our own. We found out it was not too hard to find the answer to a more personal “what’s news”. We learned the truth that there is a story almost anywhere from anyone. This answer to the basic question has stood me in good stead as I have continued to do some reporting, some feature writing, some freelance writing and even to find subjects for the weekly “Rural Reflections”.

“What’s news?” How do people respond to this question—a question that can be expanded to “why subscribe or purchase the local newspaper?” It is in the local newspaper that we can learn who was born, who was married, who died. (This is sometimes referred in the vernacular to “hatch, match and dispatch.”) It is the local newspaper that has the weather and television schedules for the immediate area. The reader turns first to those news stories with the dateline for his town, and then to almost all athletic events from the schools. For those of us from Jasper-Troupsburg we have been avid readers to see what has been written about our J-T basketball team.

Some of this news does appear in the metropolitan newspaper regional section but only in very abbreviated form if at all. “What’s news?” is a bigger question in Rochester or Buffalo than in Hornell or Wellsville.

“What’s news?” The local and immediate area radio stations provide us with reports that provide us with basic information about the local and area events.

“What’s news?” The answer takes a different tack when the television and larger newspapers take over with their reporting of national and world news. Almost three weeks ago Tom Brokaw reported there had been more news coverage for “Bill and Monica” than for the death of Princess Diana.3 He was almost apologetic for what is called “media frenzy”.

With the competition from the 24-hour television channels the evening news programs have turned to more feature reporting, more “in-depth” portions of their nightly broadcast. And then there are the ratings for the three major evening news programs.

Andy Rooney during last Sunday’s “60 Minutes” commented on the contribution of Fred Friendly, the head of CBS in the 1950s & 1960s. He said that Fred Friendly’s concept of news was “to inform the people and make them think.” He added “it was his view that broadcast journalism was not and never should he a business.”

“What’s news?” The answers have changed in some media. The tabloid press and some of the TV talk shows that fill the afternoon schedules have their own interpretation of this basic question. We deplore this journalism but forget that we can turn the TV off or find another channel or that we can ignore and refuse to buy the tabloid press. This may not make a major overall difference but it can help us to give a more informed answer to “What’s news?”

There are many more facets to this basic question, answers from this journalist’s viewpoint answers that are often very different from the readers, listeners and viewers.

In an editorial by Walter Isaacson in a recent issue of “Time Magazine”4 he wrote: “Journalism can at best be a noble endeavor. It can make people think and make them think differently. It can be empowering and liberating and il can be fun and exciting.”

Ruth Dennis is a columnist for The Spectator

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Most years, the first full weekend of March finds me at the Kentucky Philological Association’s annual conference which is held at various colleges and universities around the state. I really love this conference and look forward to presenting and socializing with colleagues at it each year.

The weather, however, often has other ideas. While fickle conditions are to some degree the norm throughout the year in Kentucky, this tends to be particularly salient in the transition from winter to spring.

One year, a snowstorm trapped some conference participants in Louisville, while others never made it out the front door of their homes. I was among the latter.

Another year, I made the drive to Morehead, only to find the campus deserted. Turns out it had been evacuated due to the threat of tornadoes; we held the first day of the conference in the meeting room of a Comfort Inn or Best Western (something like that).

Still another year, I ended up being the only person from my college who got to Northern Kentucky University safely amidst an onslaught of ice and snow.

As for this year? I drove to back and forth to Barbourville with the windows down, basking in what felt more like late-spring sun than that of early March.

In other words, it’ll soon be spring in Appalachia. Buckle up!

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Winter isn’t quite gone yet…but we can hope

We are one week into March—only 13 days from the first day of spring according to the calendar. We are one week into March—only 24 days until the first day of April. Those 90 days from Jan. 1 to April are passing.

Yes, winter officially beings in mid-December with a pre-determined calendar date. In actuality, winter arrives six or more weeks earlier with the first snowstorm of the season. But Thanksgiving and the Christmas activity often diminishes these first days of our winter. We pay less attention to the weather predictions of approaching storms and gusty winds as well as weather advisories, warnings, and watches. By January we begin to take these more seriously. We begin to consider winter as unending.

Now we are one week into March with the reality of the approach of spring. Sarah Ban Breathnach in her book, “Simple Abundance” writes “March is the last hurrah of winter and the first whisper of spring. Slowly our spirits reawaken.”

This year March came in “Lamblike” following heavy rains the preceding day. Last Sunday, March 1^st, the dark skies broke in the early afternoon. There were patches of blue sky. The sun came out periodically. Certainly this March 1 gave us hints of brighter days ahead instead of a lionlike entrance with roars of wind, cold and snow.

Snow showers, and even heavy snowfalls, the March winds and dark and dreary days have not gone away. They will be part of March in the Southern Tier just as they have almost every March.

Monday I saw my first robin! Many of my neighbors and friends had welcomed the robin’s return days before this. This made a difference to me. “My robin” may have lingered an extra day or two in the south or may have stopped more frequently on this flight north. “My robin” strutting across my lawn assured that spring was coming. April was only 24 days away.

Watching this redbreast I remembered those Florida winters and watching the robins gather in flocks in our yards. We welcomed them secure in the knowledge that these robins (or their counterparts) would be welcoming us when we came home.

Many of my friends have announced their first sighting of flocks of geese flying north. For me, it was a little longer but last Saturday I heard the unmistakable raucous honking of the geese. The sound was music to my ears as I grabbed a coat and ran outdoors to watch the big flocks. There were three in rapid succession, headed north in their traditional V formation. Last fall when the flocks of geese were headed south I often would call to them, “stay a little longer”. Now I call equally loudly, “welcome back”.

This winter has not been as stormy as most. We have had a few heavy snowstorms, ice underfoot and coating roads, gusty and frequent winds, dark and dreary days, often in rapid succession. In between we have had warm temperatures well into the 40s along with sunshine and blue skies.

Even as I write this “Rural Reflection” Monday morning the weather forecast calls for snow showers the next two days. Winter has not gone yet. But March has some special events that help us through the month. Not all are welcome, certainly not the mud of March—much of which is often tracked in several times a day. Dirt roads and driveways are sometimes as slippery as when they were covered with ice only weeks ago.

“March Madness,” for those of us who are college basketball enthusiasts, provides a welcome change to TV fare. The basketball season for our area schools will have ended and baseball and track have not taken over.

March brings the unofficial start of major and minor league baseball. Spring training has begun and exhibition games are being played. I begin again as I do each spring hoping that this will “be the Year” for “my Red Sox.”

St. Patrick’s Day in mid-March provides all, Irish or not, celebrations with special dinners, parades, entertainment and more.

We are one week into March. We have watched the TV news and read in the papers about the gigantic EI Niño storms that have battered the California coast. We have watched the scenes of havoc and human tragedies from the tornadoes that spread through Central Florida. Many telephone calls have been made to friends and relatives in Florida. The reassurance that they were safe and untouched by the tornadoes was shared with the rest of us.

We can only wonder if EI Nino has more in store for the west and east coasts. We can only wonder if EI Niño will have something yet in store for us in the Northeast. We can only wonder what will follow our winter which was much warmer than usual, which was freer from major storms than usual.

Will spring be cold and stony? Will summer be excessively hot? Will we have a drought or will we have summer rains that border on floods?1 These questions lie deep. These questions are voiced and then “put away.”

For now the robins are back. The geese are going north. The lawns have patches of green. The water in the creeks flow over the stones making its own kind of music. The crocus and the tulips are peeking through the ground. The patches of snow on the highest hills and on the edges of the deep woods grow smaller each day. Patches of green grass appear in the midst of the brown lawns. Flowers and vegetable seeds are bought and often started indoors for planting as soon as the frost is over. Maple trees have been tapped and maple syrup is being made.

Farmers are getting ready for spring, repairing machinery, caring for newborn lambs and calves. Fertilizer and seed are being purchased.

We are one week into March. The first day of April is only 24 days away.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator

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The Substack is late because the draft is DONE. A little more than 3 ½ years after the flood and 1 year and 4 months after signing the contract, I’ve completed a draft of my book, whose working title is Behind the Flood Wall, Reflections on Water and Rural Life. I will do a separate post for paid subscribers talking more about what this part of the process has been like, but for tonight, let me just say I am loving the synchronicity between that and the contents of Ruth’s column from this day (well, technically yesterday) in 1998. I mean yes, we both have “rural” in our titles—by design—but given that we both like to let our minds and words wander a little bit of everywhere, it’s not always a given that the topic Ruth’s column or this newsletter will be explicitly rural. This week, however, it is, with a specific focus on small country towns.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Looking at the ‘Rural’ in Rural Reflections

After reading Howard Mansfield’s article, “The Comeback of the New England Small Town,” in the March issue of “Yankee” about the small villages of New England, I took time to consider the small towns of my part of the country.

For the most part, it is our rural towns that are most like the New England villages that Mansfield writes about. Both can be seen as “a finished work” but most, like all American places, are “fluid.”

Just as in New England, our small towns were built around a special location, a factory or business. They all had their own personal history—a history that has been almost forgotten until a bicentennial is observed.

Mansfield writes, “The good news (about small towns/villages) is that they can change.”

Reading these words, I remembered those first days and months when I began farm and family life in Jasper. The general store in the center of town carried not only groceries but over-the-counter “remedies,” boots and some articles of clothing. And, it had a soda bar. It truly was a “general store”. Across the street was another grocery store but it was not a “general store”.

Now we have only a small grocery store/gas station combination in our town. We drive to Canisteo, Hornell or Corning to the super markets for our major grocery shopping. The offerings are many and varied. We can fill our carts with canned goods, bakery items, dairy products, deli items, toys, magazines, over-the-counter “health and beauty” items, frozen foods, as well as cake pans, brooms, flashlight batteries and on and on.

But when there is a major storm approaching or we have a basic need and very little time, it is to the remaining local grocery stores in our small towns that we turn to. Sometimes we fail to appreciate their “being there” and fail to recognize that they cannot offer the variety or even the lower prices that the super markets 20 or more miles away can.

When I first began living in a small rural town most of us were farm families. We were a closely knit community. We shared the same triumphs and cares. One year the weather would be “just right” and crops would be good. A drought or a major storm caused the same effects on each of us. Our seasons and months were measured by planting, harvesting, by fence fixing and by haying Our days were measured by the twice-daily milking, feeding, and other farm chores.

Now there are fewer and fewer farm families each year. In many families both parents work away from home even though they still live on the “farmstead.” Much of the farmland is leased to larger farm operations.

We used to have two lodges, a Grange, two churches, active women’s and youth groups in each of them. Most of us were active in church and one or more other organizations. Perhaps this was a release from some of the isolation of long hours and hard work of farm life.

Today in many small rural towns the lodges and Granges have ceased to exist. The remaining memberships were absorbed into lodges, Granges and organizations in neighboring communities.

There are fewer churches in many of our small towns. In Jasper, we united the two denominations into a federated church. This is a pattern that exists in many of our neighboring communities.

Our Central School began adding on almost at the same time that we began farming. We were proud of our school, the accomplishments of our children and of our friends’ children.

It was hard to recognize the need for change but we did, as did our friends and neighbors in Troupsburg. Now it is the Jasper-Troupsburg Central School District or “J-T” as we call ourselves.1

Currently we are all actively part of the J-T basketball team and its achievements. All differences are pushed aside when “there is a game”. Parents and grandparents. aunts, uncles, siblings, neighbors are all there to support the young people.2

Our post office is the same center of the community as it was when I first came to Jasper. It is no longer in the small building at the corner across from the hardware. Now it is part of the Town Hall which also houses the Library, the Senior Citizen Center, the town offices and meeting room. There is time for conversation, however brief, as persons stop to pick up the mail. For many there is also “coffee time” at the Senior Citizen Center while waiting for the mail to be sorted.

Our small rural town, just as so many others, has retained much of its “closeness” as it had since its beginning. There is still the sharing and caring when a family has suffered a bad fire, major illness, accident, or has another major need. The giving is almost spontaneous.

Mansfield warns that in our lifetime we will likely see small towns “crumble like a sand castle on the beach.” He cites “tremendous forces working against small communities” and notes these—the automobile, the video, the automatic teller machine, the entire growing electronic cocoon—are well documented.

Taking a close and realistic look at our small rural towns, we can see this happening here.

Mansfield also notes “against these odds, people are working to save their small towns using innovative approaches like community loan funds, stewardship programs and old-fashioned volunteerism with long committee hours.”

Taking a close and realistic look at our small towns, we can see that happening here too.

Rereading Mansfield’s feature article about small towns/villages I took time to look back at the past, to look at the present and to think about the future of our own small towns.

Mansfield summed it all up with “the bad news is that these villages/towns have changed (from the patterns of their past) and the good news is that they can change again.”

His words are not only for the villages of New England but for our own rural small towns.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator.

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Slight snark aside, I feel like reading a little humor and light might do all the world a bit of good. I know collaging and writing it did.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Sharing space and other territorial issues with a cat

Sometimes the topic for the next Rural Reflections is evasive as it was when I sat down to write this one.

The answer to “what do I write about?” was answered within minutes when my cat Scamper jumped up on to the office table to watch. This is one of her favorite togetherness times—times that are not often appreciated by me. She has never fully accepted that the office table with its many papers, folders, printer and computer are not part of her territory.

Scamper and I have lived together for almost two years now. Much of the time (his relationship has been on her terms, or so she seems to think. She does not understand why I do not want her companionship when I am at the computer. A stem “get down” is not enough on many occasions. It takes a more physical action to send her down and out to the kitchen.

When I come away from my computer I often find her and say, “I’m sorry but you just can’t be there when I am writing.” I am not certain that she understands or whether she just wants to try my patience because she repeats this “togetherness” over and over.

When I was gone recently for a few days, one of my neighbor’s daughters was my “cat sitter.” Scamper had my large bedroom for her domain (after I had put away the knick-knacks). She was given good care but refused any companionship with her sitter. She preferred to hide instead.

When I came home and greeted her the first time, she ignored me completely. Then noting she had been given the freedom of the whole house, she checked it all out. While doing so she yowled at me and yowled at me some more before returning to the bedroom to sulk.

It was more than three hours before she decided to be friends. Then she would not leave me alone but sat on my lap or followed me from place to place.

The next day our regular routine of person and cat had been re-established—on her terms. These include a cafeteria meal plan, a just-before-bedtime play time, a telephone interruption, a nap on my lap when I am knitting or writing a letter.

She meows loudly when her food dish is getting empty. No matter if there is still enough for another “meal,” the dish should always be full. She eats whenever she wishes. She has fresh water next to her food dish but usually ignores that. She prefers to drink from a pitcher on the bathroom counter. Yes, I keep the pitcher filled with fresh cold water just for her.

Many days and early evenings she naps for hours on end—either on the bed or under the coffee table in the living room. If I try to interest her in playing with a favorite toy she will make a half-hearted try and then return to her nap. She has been given many toys, most of which she disdains. When she does play il is with a bread bag twister or the ring off the gallon milk jug,

Her favorite time for racing pell-mell through the house is just after I go to bed or sometimes in the middle of the night. She does not play with any children and rarely responds to an adult call of “here kitty.” She considers “kitty” as her name instead of responding to her given name of “Scamper”. But this is my doing, since I call “kitty” much more often than “Scamper.”

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As I read Andy Thompson’s column1 last week when he wrote about the mice and his cats. I could almost match his account with mine. In a mobile home there are many places for mice to enter as they do each winter. Scamper watches, listens and stalks. About once a month she catches her prey and is rewarded by my telling her what a good mouser she is. Her victory must send a message to the mice just as Andy’s cats did. For two or three weeks after one of their kind has met its fate, there are no signs of mice anywhere. Then the process begins again.

Almost all or my life, especially after I married it was a dog that was the pet. Our two Labs, McDuff and Jake, lived the longest.2 For more than 20 years, a Lab was one of the family. Before them there was a succession of canines from Snoopy to Major. We always had a dog. Yes, we had cats too, but they were barn or outdoor cats.

Now Scamper is my pet and companion. She does not take the place of any of the dogs, especially of Jake who died only three years ago. Life with a cat is different than life with a dog. But, it is an interesting life. And as I look around I see that Scamper has again retired to the bedroom, leaving me to write this “Reflections” alone.

***** On a completely different note: There are bright spots amidst the talk of war that fills the media. (Writing this early in the week I do not know what, if anything, will be happening with Iraq by the time this column is read.)

Perhaps that is why the bright red geranium on the plant in the bedroom is so special. Perhaps that is why the Christmas poinsettia is still in bloom to brighten the dining room table. Perhaps that is why the hyacinth bulb has blossomed with its sweet fragrance.

Color and light literally help “chase the blues away”. The clear night sky and the full moon have brightened the nights. The morning color makes the covering of snow glisten and shine.

I am thankful for these and so many other forms of color and light in my personal world. They are even more welcome right now.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator.

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As I write, I am streaming the Winter Olympics. I’m not much one for either TV or sports, but put them together with a bunch of snow and ice that I can enjoy from inside my house, and I’m here for it. A bit ago, an Australian won an event called snowboard cross, then I watch a man from Japan win in the halfpipe, although that of course all happened much earlier, as did Ilia Malinin’s surprising 8^th-place finish.

That’s about all you’re going to hear from me this week. I’m in crunch time on finishing the full manuscript of this book, and people moving through space on blades or boards have the bulk of my non-book attention. But before I turn this over to Ruth, I give you…

Five random facts about the 1998 Nagano Olympic Games

1. In snowboarding’s first year as an Olympic sport, the gold medalist, Ross Rebagliati, lost his medal after he tested positive for marijuana. Then he got it back because the drug was actually not (yet) banned.

2. The medals were made of both Kiso lacquerware and metal.

3. It marked the return of curling as a medal sport after an absence of 74 years, though it was a demonstration sport in 1988 (Calgary) and 1992 (Albertville).

4. The mascot was four owls known as the Snowlets. The original plan was to have it be a weasel; 28 years later, Italy made that happen with their two stoats.1

5. Surya Bonaly was penalized for landing a backflip on one foot, finishing two places behind Ilia Malinin’s mother, who was competing for Uzbekistan. The man who would become his father finished 19th on the men’s side,

I wonder which of these Ruth might have been watching when she wrote this Sunday’s column. I also find myself marveling once again at all things in the world that have and have not changed.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Olympics bringing the world—and family—closer together

My world in the past days has gone from global to very personal as I have watched the Olympics on TV and as I spent a few days with my family in Kenmore.

I have been almost riveted as I spend “the evening” in Nagano, Japan. I am well aware that the events I am watching took place many hours earlier due to the difference in time. Sometimes I even know who the winners are. I listen to the many, many television advertisements that interrupt and am aware of the tremendous commercialism that is part, a necessary part, of the Olympics on television.

Cities around the world bid years in advance to hold a Winter or a Summer Olympics. Once the bid is awarded major construction is begun. Stadiums, ice arenas, ski runs, hotels, and more are built. Most of these remain as permanent additions to the host city.

All of this financial aspect of Olympics is put aside when I watch a skier, a snow boarder. An ice skater win or lose by a fraction of a second or a tenth of a point of` the judges’ scores.

For the brief lime of competition each athlete is realizing a dream that has involved years of hard work and personal determination. I find myself wishing that everyone could win a gold medal.

Win or lose, when an athlete is briefly interviewed following his or her event, the response is almost always the same. “It was my dream to be in the Olympics. I did my best and I had a good time doing it.”

I have been given an introduction to Japanese culture and am learning much about this country. In the pieces about some of the athletes I am learning about their native countries. All of this coverage of a global event, an event that takes place only once every four years in a different location, is a welcome relief from the constant reports from Washington about who said what.

Watching athletes from countries around the world be more than competitors, be friends even for a brief time. I relax and forget the ominous reports of a military strike against Iraq soon.

For the next week I will continue to be a vicarious spectator, not in Nagano but in Jasper as I spend the evenings “at the Olympics”.

A few days before the start of the Olympics, my world was a very personal one while I spent a few days in Kenmore with my brother and his family and to visit my mother in the nursing home. It had been several months since I had been able to be with her.

The hours I spent with her then had not always been good ones since she was in pain and depressed. Conversation was pretty much one-sided although our love was exchanged many times during each visit.

So, the opportunity to be with her again was eagerly anticipated. But, the night before my brother and I were to be with her the home called to tell us it was under quarantine and no visitors were allowed.

I was crushed with disappointment even as I understood the action taken by the nursing home. There were three cases of flu (the variety not covered by flu shots) on the second floor. In order to halt any spread of the disease to other patients on that floor or to those on the other floors, the quarantine had been established.

Mother’s room in on the third floor and we were grateful that to date no one on that floor had become ill with the flu. But it was hard to accept that I would not be able to see her.

We were able to attend the scheduled six-month medical review with the doctor and heads of staff and hoped an exception might be made. To my joy, it was decided we could see mother very briefly since I was her daughter and could get to the home very often. We followed all the instructions about washing our hands before and after we visited with her, to avoid all physical contact with her and anyone else we might encounter.

Our time with her was indeed very short and she had a hard time to understand why I could not hug her or even hold her hand. She could and did smile often, greeting me with the warmest one when she first saw me coming down the hall.

Leaving the nursing home, my brother said, “we better start planning for her 96^th birthday” (in late March). These were words that last summer none of us thought could be spoken.

I also had an unforgettable time with my three great-nephews. They range from nine months to three and a half years. Each has his own definite personality. My sister-in-law babysits several times each week while their mothers are working or having evening responsibilities.

I was able to share the babysitting one of the days I was in Kenmore. Justin, the baby, was willing to let me hold him, tell him a story and play a very simple peek-a-boo with him before his morning nap in the playpen. His very active cousin Anthony (16 months old) kept his grandparents and aunt busy as he went from room to room, from activity to activity. His usual mornings with “Barney” on TV were not to his liking this day. Before his father came to take him home for lunch and the afternoon, Anthony decided it was time to “wake up the baby.” For a brief moment I was back in time when one of my sons decided and accomplished the same thing.

Later I played “farm” with Tyler, the three and a half year old, and with Anthony. The toy farm set which was a generation old provided farm animals, tractor, wagon, silo, pick-up truck, fence and more for them. It was Tyler who wanted to “cut the grass for my cows” as he crawled across the floor with toy tractor and wagon.

My few days away gave me many personal memories to savor. A very brief but very special visit with my mother, the time with nieces and their husbands, with my nephew and his fiancée, and the time with the small children were and are part of my “personal world” in these past days.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator

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Last week, I chatted a bit with sister Substacker Stacy Bronec in the comments of her latest post, “When Your Motherhood Looks Different Than Everyone Else’s.” Stacy wrote vulnerable and beautiful things about moving to the farm and how motherhood on a farm can be lonely in ways both similar to and different from the loneliness other moms feel. As I read, I could not help but think of Ruth’s move from the Buffalo suburbs to a northern Appalachian farm that would not get electricity until some months after her arrival.1

I’ve also been thinking a lot about farmers and farm families, in part because that’s how I grew up, in part for the book,2 and in part because lately, it seems trendy to pick on farmers, even blame them for the current state of our country because of how it’s assumed they voted. I suspect this is partly because I see it more, moving as I do in progressive circles, and so the algorithm feeds me what it thinks I want to see.

The thing is, the algorithm got this one totally wrong. When I read that ranchers are worried about the renewal of beef imports from certain countries, that dairy farmers are struggling with the flatlining of the price of butter, my heart hurts. I can imagine all too well how that might look, the sacrifices families might have to make.

So when people react to their pain with laugh emojis, I cringe. Granted, my sample size is kind of small, but I don’t know a lot of farmers who enjoy the suffering of others the way so many non-rural progressives seem to revel in theirs.

It makes me think of the most powerful work of nonfiction I’ve read in a good long while, Omar El Akkad’s One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, the wake-up call I didn’t know I needed. And while at first and even second glance, it may seem to have nothing to do with the topic of this week’s Substack, the following quote has remained lodged in my brain:

Progressives like to accuse the right of cruelty. In a sickening number of cases, they are not wrong. Still, last I checked, two wrongs have never made a right.

Coming back to Ruth, when I looked to see what she’d written for February 8, 1998, I could not believe the synchronicity with my recent conversation with Stacy.3 When I think about my grandmother doing endless loads of laundry, her hands chapped by the winter’s cold or slapping away summer’s mosquitos, I cannot help but think that we should reconsider how we treat those who do work most of us can’t or won’t so that the world has enough to eat…including the ones doing all that laundry.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Memories of the past still wash over

One small load was tumbling in the dryer and another load had been started in the washer. As I left the “laundry room,” which is actually a corner of the bathroom, I thought back to those very first days on the farm.

Now I have so many choices to make. Do I want hot wash and warm rinse, or warm wash and cold rinse or cold wash and cold rinse? Do I have a mini, midi, or maxi load? Do I want regular or perma press? How many minutes of wash do I want—five, 12 or 18?

The dryer has almost as many choices including regular, perma press, normal or perma press delicate? There is always the choice of how many minutes you anticipate to dry the load. And of course the dryer has to be turned on with the switch set at either at normal or delicate.

Back in those first days on the farm there were few choices as to how and how long. There was only one way and it took a long time and much hard work. We had no electricity those first months on the farm. As a city girl I had never ever run my mother’s washing machine. I did learn to iron men’s shirts after I “graduated” from handkerchiefs and dish towels. But we had hot water just by turning on the faucet. During the winter the clothes dried on lines in the cellar and when it was sunny and warmer on the line in the back yard.

But in those early days on the farm, the first step in washing clothes was to fill the boiler with cold water and to keep the wood stove going. Once the water was hot I carried it to one of the large tubs in the back room. There I washed by hand each piece or clothing, sheets, towels, often with much scrub board action.

I did have a hand operated wringer to use to move laundry into the rinse tub which I had filled with warm water (from the boiler which I had reheated) and cold water from the faucet on the laundry sink. The hand wringer was moved to the second tub and after an “up and down rinse,” everything went through the wringer and into the clothes basket.

In the summer the wash dried quickly on the clothesline out back. In spring and fall this took a little longer. Sometimes I had to go out and “reverse” the towels, overalls, and underwear in order for them to dry completely. In the winter the clothes bars were set near the wood stove and were almost always draped with clothes to dry. Sometimes I would hang as much as possible on the three lines across the porch. Of course they quickly froze and only got fully dried after a time on the clothes bars. As a last resort I did have clotheslines in the attic where I could hang some of the wash.

I quickly learned why a whole day, usually Monday, was set aside for wash day. It was very hard work and took a long time. I was very thankful that we did have running water and that I had a choice of detergent and bleaches. Unlike my mother-in-law I never had to make my own soap.

When I was expecting our first baby, my husband decided that this laundry task was becoming too hard for me. He found someone in town who “took in laundry.” Every Sunday night he took her a clothes basket filled with the dirty clothes, sheets, towels. Every Monday night he would go back and return with the basket filled with clean, dry, fresh smelling laundry. All neatly folded.

When the Rural Electric Cooperative brought electricity to our farms, we were one of. the first names on our local hardware store’s waiting list for a washing machine. I was ecstatic when “My Washing Machine” was sitting in my back room. That first wash day with it was so very special. Yes I still had to rinse the clothes in the tub, but l I did not have to turn the wringer by hand. I only had to make sure I kept my fingers safe as I put each piece through the wringer.

I washed the baby clothes by hand as did all others in those days. This was part of our daily routine along with boiling baby bottles and making formula.

Over the many years since those first days on the farm my washing machines have become more sophisticated. When our boys were home and we were working full-time on the newspaper I had the luxury of putting a load of clothes in the washer while getting supper. Before I put the dishes in the dishwasher I would have put the clothes into the dryer. The last step would be folding them and telling each of the boys to take their clean clothes and put them away.

Drying they laundry was done the “old-fashioned way” for many years after I had my first washing machine. I liked the smell of sheets dried outdoors and seeing all of the wash hanging out to dry. There was a sense of accomplishment that I could not explain.

After a weekend when all three boys had the “24-hour bug” which really lasted 36 hours or more we ran out of clean sheets. The washer operated almost continuously but…I called a friend in town who did have a clothes dryer and told her about our predicament. She quickly invited us to use her dryer.

This solved our immediate problem and it was not much longer before we too had a clothes dryer. In the spring, summer and fall I still hung the wash out to dry whenever possible. Now I limit this and rely on the dryer.

This “Rural Reflection” is rapidly coming to an end. There is that load of clothes to take out of the dryer and the other load to take from the washer and place in the dryer.

Monday is no longer “wash day”. Laundry chores can be done anytime.4

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Greetings from the end of a hard, cold week that has left me with no useful or insightful words. I understand how privileged my life is, how fortunate I am to have heat and food and shelter…and also my heart breaks for those everywhere who do not have these things, for those who have been unhoused or detained or murdered, for all of us lost in a night that feels long despite the shorter span between sunset and sunrise. One can feel multiple things all at once and not (yet) know how to write them. Thankfully, I have a most talented co-writer, one who reminds me it’s okay to admit when things are hard…and to take time to dream, to remember light-filled days.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Counting down the winter months

One down and two to go! January has come to an end and February has begun. One down and two to go!

January seemed endless at times and also difficult, especially when the mail brought us land tax and income tax notices. We know these are January staples that cannot be escaped, but, why in January?

There were a few breaks including a three day weekend with the celebration of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. There were one or more “snow days” from school. There was the “clothing sales tax free” week when most of us went shopping. But there was no denying it— the 31 days of January were long.

February is not only the shortest month of the winter and of the year but tomorrow’s Groundhog Day sets the mood. For most of us it really doesn’t matter what the groundhog predicts. Winter weather will be winter weather and spring will come when it does. But the “hoopla” that has developed over this special day brings a welcome change of mood.

Valentine’s Day has come to be a major promotion for florists, card shops, and the stores with chocolate and other flavored candy—all in heart shapes. Yet Valentine’s Day is special. It provides us with a time to reach out, not only to family, but to friends.

Winter school break begins with President’s Day. Working parents may have mixed emotions about such a vacation schedule. If the weather is really bad and there is little or no snow the children may become bored day after day as they tire of the TV.1

One down and two to go! My sister-in-law told me about the current weather observation in Buffalo. “Spring is only a snowfall (or more) away.” During the same Saturday morning telephone conversation my brother told of the times he had cleaned out his driveway. “At this time, those winters in Florida seem worth repeating,” he commented. One down and two to go!

I have been able to escape some of January and expect to spend some time in February, albeit vicariously, on a Caribbean cruise or on a Florida beach.

Once again I circled those titles of vacation and travel brochures that are printed on insert cards in the women’s magazines. Last year I “spent” winter nights in St. Louis, planning day trips, selecting the best hotel, deciding on which restaurants I would be going to, whether I wanted a riverboat cruise all the way to New Orleans or a shorter trip north to Mark Twain Country.

This winter I chose a completely different “escape,” sending for cruise ship brochures, information about Florida, Alabama and Georgia beaches.

The brightly colored packets of Caribbean cruises have been eagerly read and studied. The ships listing passenger numbers at 1,000 would seem to be “crowded” with about the same number of people as those who live in some of our towns and villages.

I continued my review trying to decide which deck. There would be no question, I would have an “outside” stateroom. But would I prefer a three, five or seven day cruise? Would I want day-trip excursions to the islands of Antigua or St. Thomas or Nassau? Or would I want a “package deal” that included one or more days at a beach resort on one or more of these islands?

While I never expect to make such a Caribbean cruise, I have enjoyed winter evening breaks while I read and reread the travel brochures.

I have also spent many January evenings and a few afternoons with one of my new-found and favorite magazines. I discovered the first issue of “Coastal Living” last May in a city bookstore. The cover with its illustration of beach chairs and sun umbrella with the ocean as the backdrop caught my immediate attention.

I read that copy from cover to cover and have reread it many times. One of the photographs from it—that of the sea, the sand and the sea oats—now is on my refrigerator door along with the pictures the grandchildren have made me.

Later in the summer of 1997 I was able to purchase the second issue of “Coastal Living” and only a few weeks ago the January-February 1998 issue.

The feature articles are well written. Some of them are by “name” authors. They can be about places, wildlife, nature, flowers, design, hobbies, shopping and much more. Each provides a look at some aspect of coastal living whether it is on the Pacific, Atlantic or Gulf Coast.

The advertisements are equally interesting and well done. Some are for “retirement” or winter living communities. Some of these are for brand new developments and some are more familiar in name at least. I could choose from Ft. Myers to Amelia Island, from Key West to the Georgia “sea islands”. I could choose from resorts in the State of Washington to the California-Mexico border.

I could choose the style of home I might build or how I would redecorate the one I just purchased. I could select a favorite recipe for fish or other seafood.

I could learn about sail-making, or sailing itself. I could “play beach volleyball or learn to sail in a weekend.” I could decide where I would take a winery tour or where I would find the most flea markets.

These issues of “Coastal Living” have been read and reread. They have a special place on the coffee table where they are readily available when I need to “escape” winter.

Often they kindle memories of those winters in Florida, of summer stays at Assateague National Park in Maryland, or at Seashore State Park on the Chesapeake Bay in Virginia. New England shores are also given coverage in “Coastal Living” and again memories of those fall vacations in Maine come to mind.

Maybe I really did “get sand in my shoes” during those many days spent along the Atlantic and Gulf Shores. Perhaps that is why I find so much enjoyment in spending January and even February evenings reading and remembering.

One down and two to go! Only 59 days until April 1! Some of these days you might find me doing some “Coastal Living” or cruising the Caribbean—right at home here in my recliner.

One down and two to go!

Ruth Dennis Of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator.

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On Tuesday, I was getting ready for work when the music blaring from my phone briefly muted for a notification from our county’s messaging service, informing me that our courthouses (we have two, old and new) were closed. What caught my attention was not that, but rather the reason: “due to the fire in downtown Williamsburg.”

Fire in itself is shocking enough. THE fire, though, suggested I should have already been aware of it. I put down my hairbrush and checked the local news. Indeed, almost an entire block of the town I have called home this past quarter century had been on fire for several hours.1

I have not been able to stop thinking about that little word that said so much: the. Of course as a writer and a world language teacher, I think about word usage a lot, even, maybe especially, the shortest ones. A fire is bad enough. The fire feels like a cataclysm, and for those living in those apartments or running those businesses, it is. For them, the fire will be like the flood is for me. I write about a lot of floods, but it’s 2022 in eastern Kentucky that earns the definite article for me.2

Ruth too, had an eye and ear for language, as longtime readers of this newsletter are aware. Much to my delight, for this Sunday in 1998, she returned to the world of garden catalogs, where she’d been just two weeks before. It strikes me as a useful and beautiful distraction, however temporary, from the tragedy that has hit our town and the winter storm bearing down on much of the country. We might not always see disaster coming, but that doesn’t mean we cannot dream of the world we will build in its wake.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Planning ahead to make the (flower) bed

The sun was shining and ignoring the thermometer reaping of 25 degrees, I tuned to the Flowers section of the Shepard’s Garden Seeds catalog to plan again the flower beds I want this spring and summer.

This portion of the catalog begins with “flowers are a simple celebration of life’s beauty and there is a deep satisfaction in sharing these pleasures of the eye and heart.”

As I wrote in an earlier Reflection (Jan. 11) it is the prose along with the pen and ink drawings that make this catalog special. It is literally good reading and includes bits of botanical history that add to the interest of the would-be gardener.

Some of the flowers listed were completely unfamiliar to me. Still I read about each one and studied the pen and ink drawings that accompanied the information.

The Blue Lace Flower attracted my attention because it was native to Australia and that is where one of my sisters lives. The catalog describes this flower as one with flowers that resemble a lilac-blue Queen Ann’s lace.

I read with interest that the floral name “carnation” is derived from the flower’s use in ancient Greece for fragrant garlands and coronets. Carnations were also popular with flower lovers of the Middle Ages and Elizabethan era. The next time I am given a carnation or see one in a corsage or coat buttonhole, I will remember this bit of history I learned from a garden catalog.

It has been many, many years since I grew hollyhocks along one of the barns. I remember saving the seeds for another year. But somehow long before we moved from the farm I stopped planting these flowers.

So it was with interest that I turned to the hollyhock listings, noting that the Black Single Hollyhocks were grown by “master horticulturist Thomas Jefferson at Monticello and are still grown there.”

The Shepard’s Seed catalog offers an “Old-Fashioned Mix of hollyhocks, explaining, “as generations of flower lovers know, hollyhocks are long lasting and easy to grow.” Maybe I will plant some along the garage this spring. Some of the flowers are listed for their fragrance “which has been a balm since time immemorial. In the Middle Ages scent was considered the soul of the flower.”

One of the flowers listed under this category is the Mignonette. Napoleon is said to have sent these flowers from Egypt to Empress Josephine.

It soon became fashionable to grow mignonette on the balconies of 18^th-century homes in Paris where its perfume was said “to cleanse the air.” The seeds offered in the Shephard’s Catalog are imported from Holland where the flowers are a favorite with both amateur and professional gardeners.

Nasturtiums come in all forms and colors and have a long garden history. I learned that they came originally from Peru and became very popular when they were grown in the palace flower beds of King Louis XIV in France. I have often included nasturtiums in my summer flower beds. They grew easy and provided bright colors. Unlike the catalog’s description of the use of the flowers and leaves in the kitchen with their watercress taste with a hint of honey, I have only grown nasturtiums for the gardens.

Poppies, described as “old-fashioned annual beauties,” thrive in a sunny location with a well-drained soil. The catalog writer did not mention how very prolific some poppies can be and how others can be so temperamental.

I had tried and tried, unsuccessfully, to grow poppies.3 I admired their bright color that came so early in the summer. I was given seed, plants, and encouragement from friends and neighbors but every attempt failed. The seeds never came up, the plants drooped and died. Then one spring my neighbor called to tell me she was dividing her poppies and would bring me a clump or two, if I would plant them right away.

I did and the poppies grew and grew and spread and spread until they have taken over much of my largest flower bed. I really plan to dig them up this spring. As for my friend, her poppies did not respond well to being divided. She has tried to replace them with some of the progeny of those poppies she had given me. But—

I returned to reading the catalog and its listing for the “Legion of Honor Red Poppy” which grows in “glorious drifts, blanketing the open fields of western Europe where since the First World War they have symbolized the courage and valor of fallen soldiers.”

Pansies are one of my favorite flowers. Their name is derived from the French word for thoughts. Their flower faces are one of the reasons I have patio boxes filled with them each summer. So as I read the listings devoted to pansies I wondered, would I want Calon Victorian or Watercolor pansies? I know I will just pick out a flat with some yellow, some deep purple, and some blue pansies.

Another of my favorite flowers for the summer are petunias but there is only a short paragraph noting that the seeds offered are hybrids developed from the old-fashioned multifloras. These too, I will buy as plants, bringing a flat of them home—ready to plant.

There are many varieties of sunflowers listed. The seed catalog explains there has been a “new-found popularity of these joyful flowers.” One variety, the Maximilian, is native to the American plains. There is the “Sundance Kid Dwarf Sunflower,” the “Inca Jewels Sunflower” which is native to South America where it was revered by the ancient Incas. Carvings of these sunflowers have been found in historic temples.

Morning glories were a favorite flower of the pioneer families who settled the west. Traditionally they planted the morning glories along front fences or walls so “Their amazing flowers could delight passersby.” The number of varieties offered is a result of what is called “A Morning Glory Revival” as this flower is again becoming as popular as it was more than a century ago.”

An equal “Renaissance of the Sweet Pea” has made this flower a garden favorite. Again, many varieties are offered, including the “Cupani” which is named for Father Francis Cupanim the Italian monk, who, it is said, first discovered the wild sweet peas growing in Sicily. This particular variety was first introduced in 1699.

I read and reread the information about “habitat gardens” for birds, butterflies and helpful insects as well as the description for wildflower seed mixes.

I am blessed with a small field “out back” that has lain fallow for several years. Now it has become a veritable blanket of wildflowers from early spring until the heavy frosts. There are times when the wildflowers try to encroach on my columbine growing by the mailbox or the bluebells along the hedgerow.

The time spent reading and rereading the flower section of this garden catalog gave me an anticipation of spring. I put the catalog down, knowing I would be reading it again and even again. But for now, I would water my few house plants and even talk to them so they would continue to grow and flower.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator

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January 1998 appears to have been startlingly like January 2026, if Ruth’s words to believed, which they pretty much always are. Perhaps notably, both are El Niño years, the Great Lakes are in fine fettle, and there are epic quantities of snow in the North Country and Syracuse.

While these things form the first half of Ruth’s column this week, the second half goes in a completely different direction as she remembers the time she met Bobby Kennedy, aka in RFK.1 (Some readers might find echoes of 1968 in 2026 too….)

Most of the clearest memories I have of Ruth’s politics come from later in her life, a time when she wrote April Earth Day columns, had grave concerns about the so-called War on Terror, and admired Hillary Clinton. It is funny how we know people only for certain chapters of the novel that make up a life, how often we forget that we were only present for a small part of their story. We cannot imagine, for example, that someone who admired Clinton once voted for…wait for it…Nixon. Nor that someone who voted for Nixon found herself won over by RFK’s charm.2 It is a humbling reminder that there is more to each of us than meets our one small eye, that people can and do change, and that we need to grant them space and grace to do so. None of us were meant to hold just one set of opinions, to be a single static self for however many years we’re granted.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Unpredictable reflections on an unpredictable month

A little bit of this and a little bit of that for a mid-January “Reflection.”

Isn’t April supposed to be our fickle month? Well, the first part of January, 1998 has been as unpredictable as any April. Yes, I know, Doppler Radars have told and shown us when and where the storm tracks will be—but.

Just before New Year’s Day we did get dumped on with almost a foot of heavy wet snow. This was only a few days after the ice of Christmas Eve, ice that lingered underfoot most of Christmas Day.

Even as many were plowing, blowing, or shoveling the snow to clear walks and driveways and as road crews were working to keep the roads open, the common comment was “we aren’t as bad off as Syracuse.”

It was as if the national TV had just discovered that Upstate New York extended beyond Westchester and Dutchess Counties—the snow in Syracuse was part of the nightly news on every major channel.

Then came the spell of warm temperatures day and night that hinted of the spring. Monday, January 5, the sun shone so brightly and the air was so mild that I just couldn’t stay in all day. At least two of my walks were across the highway to listen to the sound of the water in the creek as it rushed over piles of stones. I walked up my dirt road to the place where the runoff from a sidehill gushes into the road ditch. I literally reveled in the sounds of these small cataracts of water.

And then it rained and rained and rained. Some areas were flooded. Fields and lawns were turned into small lakes. I even had one of these lakes in my front field where my small creek had overflowed.

Waking in the middle of the night to hear the thunder roar and to see the frequent flashes of lightning, I asked, “Is this January? Is this what ‘EI Niño’ is doing?” But again, as miserable as the weather was here, we knew we weren’t as bad off as the north country, New England and Canada. Memories of the 1991 Ice Storm came back and most of us could relate in some way to what these families were enduring.

Right now the mud that was so plentiful has frozen. The temperature is more like January. The sun is shining, the moon was full last night. The below zero nights, the wind chill factors, the snow and wind are yet to come (maybe even as this Sunday’s Reflection is in the paper.) This will all add to our memories to come of this very changeable January with Its April-like fickleness.

My Christmas decorations have all been lovingly packed away. The tinsel has been taken down from the doorways. The angels have been wrapped in tissue paper. The Santa Claus figures, the Christmas candles, the other decorations are all packed away until next December. It has been the hardest to dismantle my tiny artificial Christmas tree and to pack away the ornaments. The well-worn Santa Claus figure is the one that I had when growing up. There are lace wreaths and other handmade decorations made by one of my daughters-in-law. There are some larger colored balls that we had bought in the more recent years. And the string of lights was bought only two years ago. There is so much to my Christmas tree. Once I had put it away, the holidays were truly at an end.

The bowls of gourds, the basket of Gulf Coast shells, the stuffed elephant and frog that we bought at a trailer rally craft show, are all back on their respective shelves or tables. The family photographs are all returned to their familiar places.

The change from the Christmas season to the regular patterns of living has been made in stages. Not so in the major chain stores. Almost before the “after Christmas” sales of greeting cards, wrapping papers, and a few “left-over” gift items, the shelves were lined with red and white Valentine items from cards to stuffed animals with hearts on their chests or in their hands. Hey, it is almost a month before Valentine’s Day.

Not too long ago “The Evening Tribune” carried a feature story about a visit to Hornell by Robert Kennedy and some personal remembrances of the encounter.

It brought back my memory of when my husband and I met Robert Kennedy when he came to Wellsville for a political event.

I went farther back into memory to the 1960 election. An avid Republican, I remember telling someone that I “was a poor loser.” With that comment it was obvious I had voted for Nixon (remember this was in 1960). Soon after the inauguration I began to feel some of JFK’s charisma when I watched and listened to him on TV. I will never forget that November day in Dallas and the days that followed.

I had doubts and readily voiced them when Robert Kennedy became a New Yorker to run for the Senate. I was not too sure about these Kennedys. Then came his run for the Democratic nomination. It was bitter cold that afternoon at the Wellsville Airport. My husband and I were the AIlegany reporters for “The Evening Tribune” and were joined by a press corps of reporters from all the newspapers in the western Southern Tier. The Rochester and Buffalo newspapers had reporters there too. Robert Kennedy was to arrive by small plane and to be met by Democratic party leaders who would take him to meet a group of “invited guests”. (These guests did not include reporters.)

The plane was almost an hour overdue. The airport office/lounge was filled with reporters who were not only growing impatient but cold. And then we saw it, the plane coming in for a landing. Grabbing cameras and note pads while buttoning coats and jackets we poured out into that frigid winter afternoon.

There he was—Robert Kennedy smiling and waving as he came off the plane. And he wasn’t even wearing an overcoat. His hosts were anxious to get him to his official destination, After all the plane had been late (because Kennedy had spent more time with ‘ordinary people’ at his previous stop.)

He would have none of this brushing off of the press and began greeting each of us personally as we walked back to the airport. There in that crowded room he answered many questions, talked about his political views, and ignored the attempts to get him on his schedule.

When he did leave, almost all of us fell for his charisma. Our news stories would vary in some ways but we had shared a brief time with Robert Kennedy. His assassination was harder for many of us to accept than of his brother.

Yes. I too, have strong memories of that time when Robert Kennedy came to the area and when I personally met him.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator.

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Last week, after I wrote, “I’ve toyed with the idea posting all of Ruth’s columns for an entire year, rather than jumping around to whatever suits my fancy,” I realized that is exactly what I would like to do. It’s funny how sometimes we just have to put a possibility out into the universe—aloud, on paper, canvas, or screen—to see that the idea wanted out of the limbo of mere possibility, that we are meant to make it real.

I also saw another possibility become reality this week when I returned to my foot doctor because, well, my foot was hurting, the same foot I fractured late last summer. While there are no signs of any new or recurring fractures, it hurts a lot and so I am back in the walking boot as a precaution. Before that, thought, there was a span of about five days where I tried to pretend nothing was happening. Then, finally, I admitted to a friend that I feared something was wrong. That text made things real enough that the next day I called the doctor and now have a treatment plan.

Beyond the tiny sphere of my own small life, it feels harder to speak into existence the things I believe the world needs—love, compassion, respect for life in all its many miraculous manifestations. The forces opposing all I love feel overwhelming, breaking my heart in new, unanticipated ways each day.

Not speaking them, however, is not an option. I just finished listening to John Green’s 2021 essay collection, The Anthropocene Reviewed, in which he says something to the effect that humans did not necessarily intend to drive thousands of species to extinction, they just did not do enough to prevent it. Maybe, early on, they did not know what they were doing. But we know it now, and we know we have the power to change it. I realize the ruling class does not have much interest in such things, much less love, but what they lack, I have. I have been put here on this beautiful planet, and I have these things I know how to do. The least I can do is do them.

This means two things: 1) finishing my book and starting the next one1 and 2) following my plan for this year’s Substack, which will follow Ruth’s writing all the way through the year of 1998, a year in which each Sunday’s date mirrors it’s counterpart in 2026. Four of those will be repeats, as I have shared them before, and as of now, there are five columns missing.2 Those weeks will either be paid posts, weeks off, or I will improvise something.

I don’t yet know how much I myself will write with each column. This is partly because I rarely know what I’m going to write until I sit down and start typing, partly because Ruth was often given a lot more inches in 1998,3 as you are about to see, and partly because right now, the book is the priority. Ruth’s column isn’t going anywhere, though. Now more than ever, I think, we could use her wisdom, insights, and observations.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

Thinking of gardens while snow is on the ground

“We deeply believe that gardening can provide life and beauty and a sense of nature for anyone who is willing to give it a try.”

These are some or the introductory words in the Shepard’s Seeds catalog — a catalog that came one day before our holiday snow storm. It made welcome reading while the snow fell and then blew across the fields.4

I have never received one of this company’s catalogs before but hope I remain on their mailing list. The vegetables, herbs and flowers are illustrated with pen and ink drawings.

These attract attention but it is the prose that makes the catalog so special to both active and potential gardeners. There is a bit of history Included in many of the descriptions and a poetic sense in many of the others.

I had never really considered “beans” beyond green or yellow, snap or shell, pole and bush versus just planting the seeds in the ground. The catalog advises “start with the different colors and flavors of our European and domestic bush snap beans and finish with sustained harvests of pole beans and handy shelling and drying beans.” The gardener is reminded that radishes not only help enhance the flavor beans but help repel bean beetles. I think I will plant radishes next to the beans in my garden this spring.

I read that many varieties of beans are “treasured heirlooms” with seed saved and passed from one generation to the next beginning with the New England colonists who were “introduced” to this vegetable by Native Americans.5

Most of my family from early childhood on has not relished either broccoli or Brussels sprouts. One grandson told his aunt when offered a spoonful of broccoli, “I don’t eat trees.”6 None has forgotten that “President Bush didn’t like broccoli so why should I?” However, Shepard’s in their catalog notes, “broccoli now ranks among the top American vegetable choices.” Not in my family!

Brussels sprouts when grown in your own garden are “nutty and buttery and astonishing unlike the bitter, dry, and pungent sprouts offered commercially.” I am not certain these words would be enough to even tempt me to grow my own.

There are many varieties of sweet corn described in the catalog beginning with the historic note that “native to the Americas, corn has been cultivated for some 4000 years.” Perhaps if I were to attempt a larger garden plot I might plant some corn this spring. But, I probably will rely on buying freshly picked corn from one of my neighbors.

I am reminded that lettuce and many other salad greens including stir-fries are some of the easiest fastest and even most reliable vegetables a gardener like me can grow. Only I never have known that there are so many, many varieties from which to choose. There are some from England, some from France, some from Holland and others from Italy as well as our American varieties. Many of these come from California’s Napa Valley. The stir-fry greens are Oriental in origin and are often featured “at Asian greengrowers’ shops and restaurants.”

The Shepard’s Seed catalog adds several pages devoted to “chili peppers in all their forms and colors,” noting that chill peppers range from mild to incendiary.” There are Mexican, Hungarian, Japanese varieties among the many listed. This section of the catalog includes a “Chili hotness scale”: with “Red Savina Habanero” as the hottest and “Kalosca Paprika” as the mildest, with seventeen varieties in between.

Summer squash includes the Arlesa variety of French zucchini. The catalog tells the gardener that this variety is superior to other standard varieties in vigor, taste and style. The fruits are high up on the vine and the leaves have few spines. The gardener is promised that with this variety, “you won’t lose any that are hiding under heavy prickly leaves” — as with many of the standard zucchini varieties. The catalog, however, does not provide the answer to the question, “whom can I give some of these zucchini to?”

Tomatoes are given several catalog pages beginning with “while gardeners debate on many topics, everyone we have ever known agrees that there is nothing to compare with the flavor and texture of a tomato brought to full sunny ripeness of the plant and brought directly to the table.”

Reading this I could almost taste that first tomato sandwich of the coming summer.

Once again as I read the pages devoted to tomato varieties I was surprised not only at the number but at the origins of many including French, Dutch, German and Italian. Included in this 1998 seed catalog is the Pink Brandywine which is “new this season.” The Brandywine variety itself was the first “heirloom vegetable to achieve cult status in the recent resurgence of antique varieties.” Because of its taste many home gardeners have for more than 100 years saved seeds from this Brandywine tomato to plant the next year.

Turnips have always been my least favorite vegetable — one to be avoided whenever it appeared on a dinner table or restaurant menu. The Shepard’s Seeds catalog advises the gardener to forget “any taste memories you may have to strong-flavored bitter turnips.” It promises that its Japanese and French varieties are mild, smooth tasting, and have a crisp succulent texture which have made them newly popular with American chefs. Maybe, but I am not even tempted.

There were several pages devoted to herbs and spices. They began with the reminder that fresh herbs are “a cooking gardener’s delight and an abundant harvest from your own garden is one of life’s greatest luxuries.”

While my herb growing has been diminutive in size and uneven in frequency I can identify with those words. Several summers I have grown basil, thyme and oregano (from seed) in a porch flower box. I have harvested and dried the leaves, using them for cooking during the winters. I often gave small jars of one or more of these dried herbs as holiday gifts.

The pages in the catalog have set me to thinking about growing some herbs this year. I will be studying the catalog pages more carefully before deciding which ones I might try.

I am even tempted to try lavender. The catalog pages list several reasons for growing this plant which provides flowers that are easy to dry and enjoy year-round. I have been buying packets of dried lavender to add to my dried roses for gift sachets. I would be wonderful if I did grow and dry my own and I could choose from English, Spanish or French varieties.

The flower section of this Shepard’s Seeds catalog was equally inviting but I will save that for a future “Reflection.” The very colorful “Burpee” catalog came in the last days of December also. The brightly colored pictures also started me planning my spring planting. Both will be making impromptu and frequent reading in the weeks ahead.

As I write this column on Monday with its sunshine and warm temperatures it is tempting to think that spring is almost here. In reality by the time this Reflection is being read on Sunday, winter with snow and ice will have returned or be on the way.

Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator

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According to tradition, I should have done this at the end of December. Also, it should be some kind of comprehensive reckoning.

(Un)Fortunately, I don’t always have a lot of use for “should”.

The fact is, 2025 gave most of us a shellacking. So many things Ruth valued have been actively attacked and sometimes outright dismantled, most notably our government and the freedom of the press. I do not exaggerate when I say she would not recognize what we have become.

On a more personal level, the end of 2025 took with it one of my most trusted friends, suddenly and way too soon. It is a particular kind of horror to have my demons wake me in the pre-dawn hours and realize I cannot call him. Yes, I have other friends, people I love almost as well, but most of them are still in bed, not sitting on the porch swing with their dogs and second cup of coffee.

And yet, 2025 was not all bad. I enjoyed time with family, friends, and pets. I hiked (except for those interminable weeks when my foot was broken). I ate and drank delicious things. I wrote a lot, including during my two trips to Virginia, one for a writing residency at Porches, the other to the Tinker Mountain Writers’ Workshop, both thanks to my literary arts grant from South Arts. With that same grant, I bought a camera, thanks to which I am learning the art and science of 21st-century photography. This Substack had its second birthday, and has reached nearly 100 subscribers, 3 of them able and generous enough to pay.

Interestingly (at least to me), our two most popular posts came at the bookends of the year, in January and December:

1. Never underestimate the power of a woman, published January 12

2. Please don’t ask if we’re ready for Christmas…, published December 7

Runners-up included:

3. This one’s for the birds, published March 30 (tie)

3. You can’t have history without story, published November 29 (tie)

4. “You’ve got mail…” (or not), published July 27

5. Aging is not for the faint of body, published August 30

I also read, both more and less than I thought I had. I’m one of those people who always has a book or magazine close to hand, and I’ve fallen hopelessly in love with audiobooks whilst doing chores or driving in the car. Not counting things I read for work or research, I finished a total of 70 books in the past year. Some favorites included (lists are by no means exhaustive and aside from my top picks on the left, in no particular order):

Fiction

Essays and memoir

Poetry

Four books I always come back to (no single top pick here)

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Looking forward

It would be an understatement of epic proportions to say I have no idea what to expect from 2026, only that after yesterday’s headlines, we’d better buckle up. All I know is that I plan to keep hiking, petting animals, and doing good when and wherever I can. And, of course, read and write. I have a TBR pile large enough for several seasons, access to three wonderful public libraries, this Substack, and my own book to complete.

What I don’t know (yet) is exactly how all this will look. In two days, a new semester will begin; the fog of grief has just now began lifting for long enough spells that I can write, and that only if I compartmentalize pretty hard. While I can see the light at the end of the tunnel on my manuscript, I still have to make my way through and hit “send.” I’ve toyed with the idea posting all of Ruth’s columns for an entire year, rather than jumping around to whatever suits my fancy. Maybe this will be the year I do that.

Then again, maybe it won’t. Stay tuned to find out!

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December commencement at the college where I teach takes place tomorrow. The thermometer reads 17 and falling. Our daily dose of light already feels short, the nighttime’s darkness bleak and long, though we still have a week to go before the longest night and the season’s turn.

Many struggle with this time of year, and I count myself among them. Rather than fight it with forced gaiety, I am learning to allow these low times, just as I allow the warmer brighter ones. Part of that allowing means taking time away, time for family, friends, and reflection, not to mention thick classic novels and songs we sing just one month each year.

The Reboot will be back in 2026. Meanwhile, please enjoy Ruth’s end-of-year “Rural Reflection” from 31 years ago, as 1994 turned to 1995. I don’t think I’ll be the only one who finds uncanny echoes and refractions between that time and now….

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

“As time goes by…”

The words bring a melody to memory, along with another one of Bergman and Bogart in “Casablanca.”

The words also start a series of rapid reflections summing up the end of another year.

Nineteen ninety-four coming to an end? Why, it was only yesterday when we were singing “Auld Lang Syne” and wishing everyone a “Happy New Year” in 1994, wasn’t it?

Still, looking back, there were periods when the year seemed to drag, especially with those winter storms, one after another. We shoveled snow in 1994—shoveled snow, plowed snow, moved snow and watch snowbanks grow to new heights.

We had the winter Olympics to break the monotony of storms and snow, of wind chill and winter colds. We watched the Nancy Kerrigan-Tonya Harding drama unfold on and off the ice. We thrilled to the triumphs of Bonnie Blair and Don Jansen and cheered our own Tracy Evans.

Spring did come. The snow did melt. The crocus did bloom. We were free of winter. We had survived. We eagerly became involved with gardening, picnics, outdoor sports, vacation plans and so much more.

In the midst of these activities we became involved in a real-life police chase taking place on live television as we watched. The initials “O.J.” became part of our everyday vocabulary until we finally tired of the constant drama of our soap opera, content with concerns for created characters.

For many of us, summer came to a sudden end in August when baseball ceased. “My Red Sox” did not even have a chance to try for first place as the World Series neared. Now we are not certain if we will have Major League Baseball in 1995. My greeting at the start of another year to owners and players alike is to remember us, the fans, and “play ball.”

This year was not complete until we endured politics at every level. The campaign began early and lasted for what seemed an eternity. We learned to pay little, if any attention to the “dirt” and innuendo being served up daily.

Then came the aftershock. The ramifications and rumblings are still going strong. We, the voters, were promised and we were threatened with dire consequences. Now we are waiting to see how we and our families will be affected.

As happens every year, we saw the forces of nature unleashed with an earthquake in California, floods in the south and Midwest, hurricanes and nor’easters, including one that battered the Atlantic coast at Christmastime. But we also enjoyed an unprecedented, long fall. Some have been getting anxious for snow, but we all know it will come—and come many times before long.

The year was no different than any others in terms of human misery. The places have changed, but there was hunger, bombings, terrorist attacks, war, hunger and more. We try to ignore as much as we can, but we find these events keep coming closer to home. Compassion is no longer enough. Commitment has an urgency that transcends petty excuses.

In the year that is coming to a close, each of us has had personal highs and lows, good times and our share of trouble. That is life.

For me personally, I have added a great nephew to my family at the same time I lost a much loved aunt. Friendships have been strengthened and new friends made. I have enjoyed some special and personal times with grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They help to keep me young in spirit, if not in limb. I have read so much and written a good deal. Words continue to be a mainstay in my life. My garden, my plants and my dog (not necessarily in that order) are a continuing delight.

Time goes by and life goes on. It is only as one year passes and a new one begins that we pause ever so little to reflect on the events of the passing year while looking ahead to the new year. So happy New Year, everyone.

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Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator.

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During my recent outing to the Museum of Appalachia, I bought a couple of Christmas gifts. Feeling accomplished, I went to stash them with the few other things I’d already purchased.

Whereupon I panicked. I could not find the stash in question anywhere. Until, that is, I slowed down and found the gifts-to-be deeper in the closet where I stow such treasures each year.

I am not especially good at Christmas. I don’t have magical decorations in every room of my home. I love lights but often lack the energy to hang them. I know I’ll be going to New York, but at this point, the dates are no more clear than the drive to work on a fog-filled morning. When people ask me if I’ve finished shopping, I blink like the proverbial deer caught in headlights. (If they ask this before Thanksgiving, lord help them.) If I didn’t love the look on a person’s face when I’ve found just the right gift, and if I wouldn’t feel like garbage for failing to reciprocate the generosity shown by others, I’m not sure I would even bother.

Why not make gifts? some might ask. It’s a reasonable question, with equally reasonable answers…to my mind, anyway. One, my arguably best skill happens to be baking…which I would have to do during finals week. Hard no. Two, my next best skill would have to be sewing…which I have done but could do better if it ever occurred to me to think about Christmas during summer break.

This year, I’ve ordered cards to color. That will at least be a bit of a personal touch. Or it’s supposed to be, but I might have put off ordering them just a beat too long.

If my Grandma Florence were still with us, she’d have already assembled an elf army from pop tabs, fabric scraps, and sequins while her second batch of fudge cooled on the counter. Ruth, however, would be very much in the same boat as me, as you will see in this column dated November 26, 1995.

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Rural Reflections

By Ruth Dennis

As the weeks and days grow closer to Dec. 25, my sense of inadequacy grows at an even faster rate.

I cringe when friends tell me they have their shopping almost done. At this point in time, I can no longer take any credit for that advance shopping I did last summer. I have a few Christmas gifts stored away—items purchased at festivals and crafts shows, at summer mall shopping expeditions, and even a souvenir or two.

These were spur of the moment purchases. Now I have to retrieve them from their hiding places and then decide who gets what. From that point I can begin to assemble a shopping list that may be completed within the final days before Christmas.

I cringe when friends tell me how they bought all their wrapping paper, gift tags and bows at the after-Christmas sales last year. This is a degree of preparation that I never follow through. I have discovered that half-roll of green wrapping paper and a few dilapidated bows but I will need much more. Again, at the last minute I will be out buying that final package of red or green tissue and even purchasing just a few more Christmas cards.

Each year I make firm resolutions that I will be better prepared for the holiday, that I will be spared that last minute of frenzied activity. But the scenario is always the same even though my intentions are good.

I study the recipes for the Christmas cookies that are pictured in the women’s magazines, and decide that maybe this year I will try to make one or two of them. I plan to use the simplest of the recipes and the ones without very special ingredients. I even plan on setting aside one or more cookie baking days. Again, the intentions are good, but I get sidetracked and end up with the usual sugar cookies. As a gesture to the season, I do take time to decorate them with red and/or green frostings.

But my greatest sense of inadequacy at the holidays comes when I realize just how many unfinished craft projects I have put away to finish before Christmas. There are the Christmas stockings ready for appliqué and special stitching. I was going to have them made for some of the younger grandchildren to put on their Christmas trees. But I will have to finish them next year.

There is a cross-stitch sampler with designs of antiques that I started at least three Januarys ago. Each winter a little more is embroidered and then I put the project away saying, it’s hard on my eyes. But I will get it finished before Christmas because there is lots of time.

There is a latch hook picture of a lion about half completed. I began it for a grandson’s room. He may be an adult before I get it finished. I do have one of a pair of pillow cases embroidered. I expect I achieved this degree of completion because the pattern is of roses.1 But I can’t give just one pillow case for a Christmas present.

In addition to the unfinished needlework, I continue to collect pine cones of all sizes as souvenirs of places I have visited. The very large ones were collected in Georgia. Some that were collected since last Christmas were collected while on a family hike through the woods.

The cones are piled high in a wicker basket with a red bow on the handle. They make an attractive if simple decoration but they were gathered for craft projects. I planned to gild some of them with gold and silver, to glue gun them into varying shapes—all for holiday decorations. The same plans are made for seashell crafts. None are even started.2

Each year as Christmas approaches and the inadequacy grows, I face reality. I am just not one to be prepared well in advance for anything. I am, however, one of those who begins to fret about what is not done and who resolves to do better next year.

Most of all, this is the time each year when I face the greatest reality of all. I am just not a crafty person!

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Ruth Dennis of Jasper is a columnist for The Spectator.

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