Tennessee

A Burst of Springtime!

March 14, 2019 by Nancy 14 Comments

As we dig out from a blizzard here in Colorado I’m longing for the early signs of Spring I remember as a child. Each year in late February or early March my dad would come into the kitchen of our Tennessee home carrying long branches he had cut off the forsythia bush in our side yard. To my sisters and me the branches looked just as lifeless as all the others on the trees and bushes outside, but Dad placed them in a vase of warm water on the windowsill.

The next day, we would marvel at the tiny buds beginning to appear. Within three days the branches would be alive with radiant yellow flowers! Although it might still be gray and gloomy outside, we had a burst of sunshine in our kitchen window, and a promise that Spring was on the way.

How can we bring that kind of springtime into the hearts and lives of people we know? We can do it literally, by forcing bulbs and delivering a basket of blooming tulips or hyacinths to a friend having a long winter of the soul. Or by planning a visit to a botanic garden where she can breathe in the sights and smells of a green spring long before it’s in full bloom in her neighborhood.

We can also bring springtime feelings into the souls of others, especially older adults, by helping them remember times in their childhood that were carefree and happy, or by listening patiently as they share fond memories of loved ones lost and days gone by.

Or maybe it’s the more permanent message of springtime renewal that we hope to deliver, one that will have long-lasting, even eternal effects. Martin Luther wrote, “Our Lord has written the promise of the Resurrection not in books alone, but in every leaf of springtime.”

Let the crocuses pushing their way through the late snows, followed by the tulips standing tall and the trees covered in bright green leaves, be the signs we need to remind us that Easter is coming! Easter, the day where believers everywhere celebrate the truth of John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

So if, like the yellow forsythia, you deliver a burst of springtime to someone this year, consider adding a message of eternal hope. Remind them that Easter is coming! It could be just the encouragement they need.

Me in the Middle

November 30, 2018 by Nancy 22 Comments

I’ve just returned from a visit with my two sisters in Tennessee and have been reflecting on the fact that except for the four years before my younger sister was born, I’ve always been the one in the middle. Not Malcolm in the middle or even monkey in the middle, but me in the middle!

My parents spaced us roughly four years apart so they wouldn’t have more than one child in college at a time. When we were growing up, that four-year spread seemed huge, but at the ages we are now it’s almost non-existent. My two sisters are like bookends on my life. I can fall over in either direction and I’ll have a sister to catch me and prop me up.

And I truly am the middle in so many ways: the middle size, the middle temperament, the middle energy level. Together we were known in our hometown of Knoxville, TN, as “The Parker Girls,” and I’m as proud to be referred to as one of those three girls as I ever was.

"The Parker Girls" in '83 and '03. — “The Parker Girls” in ’83 and ’03.

Studies on middle children state that they tend to be good negotiators—especially when it comes to getting what they want. “Middle-borns are the most willing to wheel and deal,” said birth order expert Dr. Frank Sulloway in an article by Natalie Lorenzi on Parents.com website. They are agreeable, diplomatic, and compromising, and they handle disappointment well. They have realistic expectations, are the least likely to be spoiled, and they tend to be the most independent.

First-borns are commonly characterized as perfectionists with take charge personalities. They are often confident over-achievers, since they had the most time to emulate the adult behaviors of their parents. Youngest children, however, are characterized as more carefree and easy-going, fun-loving, affectionate and sociable. They like to make people laugh.

Knowing my sisters and myself as I do, I have to say parts of those descriptions fit. But in truth each of us has displayed all these characteristics from time to time. We’ve always resisted any urge to label or stereotype one another, and never ordered the T-shirts with funny sayings about being the oldest, the middle one, or the baby of the family. We are simply sisters, with a family history only the three of us share. We can quote our Mom or Daddy and we all “get it” without explanation. We shared a home with a barn and horses, clothes, make-up, and family vacations in the ’59 Chevy station wagon. We survived driving mishaps, boyfriends, and marriages together. We always did and always will want the best for one another.

How grateful I am to be able to say along with Sister Sledge, “We are family. I’ve got all my sisters with me!” Whether near or far, we are always close at heart. And from my perspective, being in the middle is the perfect spot to be. Love you, sisters!

Hay Fever

November 7, 2013 by Nancy 13 Comments

Some aromas permeate our childhood memories like vanilla in cookie dough or yeast in cinnamon buns. They come to mind as surely and sweetly as secrets sisters share growing up. For me, one of those fragrances is the scent of freshly mowed hay in the fall—the last cutting of the year. Call me a hayseed if you’d like, but from an early age I’ve had the best kind of hay fever.

I grew up on a non-working farm in East Tennessee, meaning that farming wasn’t how our family earned our living. But we lived in a big white farmhouse with a screened-in porch that was surrounded by pastures. We also had a large red barn and a couple of horses, and throughout the years of my childhood owned an assortment of dogs, cats, chickens, rabbits, pigs and one notorious goat named Billy (of course). Billy had to quickly find another home after he ate 12 blossoms off my mother’s prized geranium one Sunday while we were at church!

Even as a tiny girl I remember “hay-cutting day” as a time of excitement in our home. My two sisters and I would hear the big combine lumbering down the two-lane road toward our house before we saw it, but we already knew it was time for the hay to be mowed because of the aromas emanating from the kitchen.

My grandmother lived with us, and on hay-cutting day she took it upon herself to cook a big pot of pinto beans for the workmen to have for lunch—along with cornbread baked in a cast-iron skillet. Once a whiff of those two dishes cooking at the same time wafted upstairs, even the sleepiest heads woke up early on a Saturday morning so as not to miss Granny’s home cooking.

Even now on road trips I never fail to notice baled hay in pastures we pass. The bales we watched roll out of the hay-baler in my childhood were the traditional, rectangular box shape—easy to store in the barn for feeding the horses over the winter. But my favorites now are the big circular bales like the ones above that I photographed on our family property in Tennessee last month. I even spied some in Tuscany when we were there a few years ago. Much to my husband’s amusement, I often want to photograph hay bales. No other sculpture speaks to me the same way.

My sister-in-law Mary, since deceased, was an excellent horsewoman and the only person I’ve ever known who was a hay connoisseur. If we were stuck behind a truck full of hay on the highway I might be frustrated wondering how to get around it, but Mary would be assessing the quality of the hay on the truck and whether she would feed it to the horses in her care.

So now seeing hay reminds me of a cherished sister-in-law as well as my childhood home in Tennessee. No wonder I have hay fever.