Elsie Nottestad
Lee worked on the road, traveling all the time, so when they did any additional car trips, they tended to be short, out and back affairs, to see Lill's relatives. We would ordinarily go to one of three destinations: La Crosse, La Farge, or Westby.
Westby, of course, was common to both of them. Lill's parents had moved into town. They had a small house a few blocks west of the main street through town. Westby had a huge ski jump a couple of miles from town and was a somewhat famous for this. My mother told me that back in the day, a hot-shot from high school rode his bicycle down it in the summer on a dare, breaking the majority of his arms and legs when he landed on the turf below. I have climbed on the ski jump and looked down it, and I just can't imagine anyone having the pluck to ski down it, much less ride a bicycle down it in the summer.
We called Grandma Lill's mother, Elsie, "Grandma Two". Grandma Two was like Grandma Lill, only on steroids. She was a stout, stern, woman, built much like a barrel and her word was law. If you wonder how the human race manages to survive in this often hostile environment called "the world" you need look no further than people like Grandma and Grandpa Two. Every family has them and they are survivors. They are why softies like us are even here.
Grandma Two and Grandma Lill were so much alike that I often got them confused. They were both loving and nurturing but you'd better not cross them. Like Grandma Lill, Grandma Two baked cookies. There were three main cookies in that day, and I liked them all. Most delicious were the ones called "sandbackles". We pronounced them as sun-buckles. They were made of white cookie dough pressed into little tins that had zig-zag edges. Once baked, they were tipped over to cool and would pop right out of the tins. They were wonderful.
Similar cookies that I can remember were called "hats". These, I think, were made by pressing the dough on the outside of the tins and then covering them with colored sugar, thinly sliced almonds, and the like. They were kind of a Christmas cookie.
The third most common to my memory was the standard round white cookie with a pecan pushed into it. Sometimes it would be a walnut half instead. At Christmas time, of course, the specialty cookies, made by rolling the dough tin and using cookie cutters shaped like stars, snowmen, candy canes, and the like, appeared. They might have shaved candy cane pieces on them or powdered sugar made to look like snow.
Yet another cookie to appear during the holidays, was the doughy round, thick, cookie with a prune in the middle. It had a name, something like "kolashes".
All around Grandma Two's house, a plant called "touch-me-nots" grew. It was bushy and had nice little unassuming flowers, but little beans, about a half-inch long and shaped like tiny little green bananas grew along the stems. When they were ripe, these little beans would fly apart if you disturbed them. I can remember spending hours toddling around the perimeter of the little house, touching the beans and watching them explode.
One trip to Westby is indelible in my mind. I was riding in the back seat and so was Grandma Lill. I had been intently searching for white horses all the winding way up Cashton ridge and along the top over to Westby, because she was paying me a "virtual" quarter for each one I counted, as usual.
We finally got to Westby and pulled up in front of Grandma Two's house. Grandma Two had noticed and had come out of the house and was walking toward the car to embrace her daughter. Grandma Lill opened the back door, swung her feet out, and using the door as an aid, stood up.
Cars in that day were real boats. They had wide bench seats because other kinds of seats were not yet invented. Seat belts had not been invented either. You just piled in. You could easily get three in the front and three or sometimes even four people in the back, depending upon their size. The cars were built like tanks.
It is probably lucky for me that Grandpa Lee had bought a Mercury or a Buick or a Studebaker or Oldsmobile rather than something very expensive and well machined, because when I slid over to exit the back seat behind Grandma Lill, she abruptly took hold of the door and gave it a good slam shut.
I had gotten so far as to extend my puny little right arm outside the car, grasping for something to hold onto. The door slammed shut with me on the inside and my wrist and hand on the outside, and clicked. It had completely closed.
I let out a yell that was probably heard in Viroqua, Coon Valley, and perhaps even in the states of Illinois, Iowa, and southern Minnesota. It was good fortune for Grandpa Lee that he had exited the driver's side or it might have adversely affected his hearing.
Grandma Lill turned around and saw the rear door of the car completely closed with a little hand mysteriously protruding from the crack, and did just what anyone would expect her to do. She grabbed the door handle, pushed the button in, and with a mighty heave, pried the door back open.
It is amazing how rubbery little children's bones are, because there are two of them in your forearm and neither of mine snapped during the ordeal. They just adjusted to the small space between the door and the jamb. The panic and staccato syllables of Danish subsided and after feeling my arm and examining it, they all gradually extinguished my crying with hugs, pats on the back, comforting words, and probably a good many of the above-described cookies.
No comments:
Post a Comment