Published Nov. 29, 2017 in Tulare County's Foothills Sun-Gazette
Visiting my family for Thanksgiving,
we spent many hours at the table this past weekend. Only a few hours were spent eating. The table is a place to lay out conversation
as well as food. With both of my
parents’ hearing on the wane, the table makes it easier to get ideas across,
keeps the words from falling to the floor and being absorbed by the carpet.
At my mother’s table I learned some
new things about my grandfather and, accidentally, the geography of her home
place. She spoke of standing next to her
dad with her hands in the back pockets of her overalls, mimicking his stance,
watching trains come and go from the nearby station. She asked him once why there were two steam
engines groaning in unison on trains headed south. “That’s to get them over Newaukum Hill,” he
answered.
I’d never heard that place name
before, though I visited that territory frequently most of my childhood. So when I got home I went to Google
Maps. There, amidst names I’ve heard for
almost seven decades, names like Adna and Littel, Claquato and Napavine,
southwest of Chehalis, there was the red balloon stuck on Newaukum Hill, elevation
404 feet.
She also told about her father
taking her to see the elephants raise the tents when the circus came to
town. He woke her about 3 a.m. and they
went there together to see the feat, which occurred annually on a field next to
the station. My brother and I played
together on that field, but I’d never heard about the elephants or the circus
setting up there – not until we sat at her table 1000 miles and 85 years beyond
that memory.
Not long after that story my mother
produced a photograph of her mother holding my younger cousin Teri. I never met Mom’s mother, their bad
relationship keeping them two states apart.
I saw portions of my aunts’ faces in hers, finally placing us within the
missing side of the family tree.
At my father’s table the next day, a
lot of loose ends were laid out for reweaving.
Some of them have become too frayed for inclusion, but I learned some
facts about his father’s time in the Revenue Cutter Service through a story
about the recent discovery of one of its ships.
As the story trailed off, Dad said “Now I think I know why Dad and my
brother Bill could never get along. Bill
(the first born,) came too soon and robbed my dad of the sea.” Dad once lamented similarly about my own
arrival. I guess the Wischemann men
didn’t know much about timing.
When I’m at my parents’ tables, I
have to do a lot of silent forgiving – for inconsistencies, for moral slips
produced by their dates of birth, for mangled facts as time works its magic on
their memories. Once in a while, though,
the appearance of a new truth absolves them and time both. May you all be digesting your table scraps
and being nourished by them. Onward –
Christmas is calling.
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Trudy
Wischemann is a story gleaner who writes.
You can send her your favorite table scraps c/o P.O. Box 1374, Lindsay
CA 93247 or leave a
comment below.
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