Still smiling after all these years

We're still smiling after all these years.

How could they do it? Either set of our parents? Let a barely eighteen-year-old girl marry a nineteen-year-old boy not yet out of college and her barely started. What were they thinking?

I still wonder at them. But after 48 years, I'm glad they did it. So is Bob and so are our three kids and five grandkids! Especially the kids and grandkids!

Here's the sunny couple on a hot August morning in Amarillo, Texas. August 30, 1958. Glowing and innocent--no idea of the ups and downs, curves and dead ends the road of life had in store. They've made it this far and have great plans for continuing on the highway! (Remember after all--they grew up on Route 66--it cut right through Amarillo.)

Another adventure--Pied a Tally

I'm having another adventure. There's no picture to go with it, because I didn't think of doing it it until about one minute ago.

I'm not sitting in my quiet workroom in Bainbridge thinking small town musings. Instead, I'm in the Florida State U. library, pecking away on my new laptop and connected to the world wirelessly.

Bob has entered the homestretch working on his dissertation. He's teaching a class as well. Since he's now a Florida resident he needs to live here, right? He has an apartment near the campus, and is a city guy.

Many of our Bainbridge pals have lake or beach houses where they head for a retreat almost every weekend. I get enough of the quiet life during the week--so the plan is that many weekends I'll join Bob for city fun. The apartment is tiny and great. The important things: it's clean, we can walk to the FSU concert halls and the Civic Center, and Frank-the-dog is welcome!


We went to a great concert benefitting WFSU public radio last night and bought VIP tickets to opening night of Tallahassee Ballet next month. This morning we walked a couple of miles around the campus, then had coffee and the newspaper at the nearby All Saints Coffee House where Frank is welcome on the patio.

A great adventure in the making in our new place.

We call it our Pied a Tally.

Home for a spell

End of summer. Start of school. Time to stay home and . . . The first thing I always do, even before I bring in the suitcase, but after I hug the dog and cat, is take a garden tour. In our humid, sultry summer days thing change a lot in a week. Almost 200-year-old long leaf pines tower over our sandy soil dropping miriad organic tidbits. Mushrooms abound. So does Spanish moss.
A granddaddy toadstool and two tiny grandbaby ones greeted me on this tour, as did a blazing rose of sharon. I paid a dollar for this bush about 10 years ago. She was supposed to be white. One of the best dollars I've ever spent!

Home again, off again

We're home, but I'm rushing out the door on another adventure. Off for a 'girl's week' on Hilton Head with a old pals and a new one. I've been gone so much that I'm yearning to be home.

Houston as usual and always was great for us. We may live in the country, but underneath we have city hearts. Mostly we have grandparent hearts and nothing can be finer than a few days of fun with a handsome, funny, wonderful five-year old grandson.

Good to get away, good to get home

We’ve been on the road—the National Road that stretches from Cumberland, Maryland across Pennsylvania to Wheeling, West Virginia. This road opened the land west of the Alleghenies to early settlers. (I think some of my great, great, great forebears, the Nordykes made the trek to Indiana along this road.) I was especially moved by the Madonna of the Trails—a statute saluting pioneer women. (One of those greats was a grandmother.)

After we got a good dose of history, we headed down to West Virginia for crisp air, lovely scenery and much loved grandchildren.

Sometimes the best part of a good trip is getting back. Particularly with the garden putting on one of it’s best shows. The lily is a volunteer stretching toward the sky just outside my bedroom. The cleomes festoon the front (and almost recovered) flowerbed with sparkle and pizzazz.
We’re on the road again tomorrow to see the Houston tribe. I’m the excited owner of a new wi-fi laptop—if I can find a coffee shop, I can keep on posting!

See you from Houston.

By the side of the road

Small town living is great, but sometimes these former Houstonians need a city fix. For us, it’s easy—run the forty or so miles down the road and visit Tallahassee, Florida. Home to the state capitol and two big universities, Florida State and Florida A&M, there’s always something going on. A play, a concert, a great meal, and of course, lots of shopping. For Texans—Tallahassee is like Austin in the late 50s and the 60s. ‘Bout as close to perfect as you can get—it’s even set on rolling hills.
One of the best parts of the Tallahassee ramble is the trip home. Right at the Georgia/Florida state line there’s usually a cluster of entrepreneurial vendors. Shrimp “straight off my cousin’s boat this morning,” great fresh vegetables and fruits, “picked an hour ago at Mama’s.” And that great North Florida-South Georgia delicacy, boiled peanuts.
That’s right. Green (they’ve got to be green) peanuts boiled in their shells and then sacked up for good eating.
When we first moved her a new friend gave me the recipe—cover the green peanuts with water in a big soup pot. Add ‘way too much salt and boil ‘em ‘way too long. They’ll be perfect.
Believe her, they will.
I’ve labored in the kitchen over fancy appetizers, and then on a whimsy put a bowl of boiled peanuts on the porch. (They need to be served outside because of the slimy shell problem!)
Guess what! Every man at the party—and most of the women—are on the porch gobbling peanuts. Forget the paté and the smoked oysters. They know what is good!

I'm going to be playing with grandchildren for a bit, so I may not post for a few days. But I'll be back soon!




A local tradition--buying a couple of bags (or more) of just-out-of-the-pot boiled peanuts on the Georgia-Florida State Line. (US Highway 27 North)

Daisies bounce back

Seems like the daisies keep popping up in my posts. Here they are again. What’s left of them!
If I’m recounting the good times of small town living, then I have to hit on some not-so-good ones as well.
My daisies were devastated on Independence Day—right in front of the flag I’d shown so proudly waving that morning. We were in the yard mid afternoon admiring the flowers and feeling the heat when we heard and felt a shattering jolt. Clearly a collision in the fairly busy street in front of the house. I ran for the phone while Bob ran for the sound. A truck had apparently run a stop sign and plowed up the embankment and across my flowerbed.
By the time I was out the door with 911 on the line, Bob was heading for our car. “He left!” He called “I’m going after him.”
Things calmed down. Bob did find the truck—badly damaged. The police came. The alleged miscreant who’d been doing early celebrating in a “borrowed” vehicle was apprehended. Things are almost back to normal.
Not quite. We’re still nursing the wounded garden. Bob rebuilt the bank and replanted the antique lilies and the precious daisies. I babied my treasured Pink Pet roses. The surviving daisies dipped in the summer breeze and assuring us that things will be fine!

July 4, Independence Day

Happy Independence Day!

Early morning on July 4, 2006. Bainbridge Georgia










Do I have a nose for news? Yesterday I shared the fireworks tent sponsored by the Penecostal Church here. Today the stand and the pastor are front page news in the Post Searchlight. Check it out at


http://www.thepostsearchlight.com While you're there, check out my column by hitting the "stirringupmemories" link--it's two under the obituaries. If that doesn't work, go to http://www.trillap.com, read the column and enjoy some Bainbridge views.

P.S. best seller at the fireworks stand is "Pyromaniac"!

The big bang!

The weekend before Independence Day, it’s no surprise to wheel into a parking lot and find a big tent filled with fireworks in Bainbridge or across the country.
I was, however, taken with the sponsor of this tent load of bangs and sparkles—The First United Pentecostal Church!
Tomorrow, if I go in search of the Big Bang! I know who can take care of me!


If you'd like to visit more scenes of Bainbridge, visit my website--http://www.trillap.com

July 1 gift

When my neighbor offered old-fashioned lillies in exchange for daisies, I was happy to make the trade, but I felt fairly sure I was getting more of my "Professor Elcan" pinks.
It seemed appropriate that their new home be in the front bed, right beside the daisies.
The Elcan flowers burst into a pink symphony last week. The new ones did nothing. Maybe they don't bloom the first year, I thought.
But this morning as I pulled up from my early morning gym class, a flash caught my eye. The bright, almost red gleem of the new residents, splendid in the July sun. From now on, they will be known as the "Carolyn lillies."

If you'd like to know more about Bainbridge and my garden, visit me at http://www.trillap.com!

Small town living

Seemed like every child in Bainbridge was packed into the assembly room at the Library to meet some visiting animals. The guest Eagle Owl wasn’t interested in his audience; he had those big eyes glued to the snakes, the stars of the next act. They looked a lot like lunch to him!

I was born and raised in a small city (Amarillo, Texas) and raised my family in a huge one (Houston). Most days I feel that I’m a city girl to the bone and I can’t fathom that I’ve ended up spending a major chunk of my adult life living the small town life. I begin my day with the New York Times—online, we can’t get home delivery. I wince when I hear about the Houston Grand Opera or Atlanta’s Alliance Theater.
Then I have a day like yesterday. I left my house a little past eleven to check out the animal show at the Library. It was the only time all day that I had a problem parking, and I didn’t mind at all. Every one of those cars jamming the parking lot had brought at least one child, probably more to the library not only to see the animals but to head home with two, or three, or four books to read.
I left the library and ran by the Sweet Spot, a just opened boutique and bakery, owned by the Sweet family, to pick up a dozen peanut brittle chocolate cookies (six chocolate, six white chocolate) for my pals at the Post-Searchlight where I have a bi-weekly column. It still wasn’t time for my lunch date, so I dropped in the fabric shop sure I wouldn’t find the cheesecloth I needed for a cooking experiment. (More about that later—if it works.) Janet stopped and thought. From behind several bolts of net, lace and other fancy fabrics—here was the cheesecloth. 89 cent a yard. I took three yards and talked to Janet about my daisies and her upcoming trip to Greece. She’ll close the shop for a week, but that’s fine. All of her customers know about the journey.
I dropped the cookies at the paper and met my lunch date. We walked to Café Perk right across the street from the Courthouse. I had a chef salad and mega iced coffee. My bill added up to under $8. An hour later I waved good-bye to my pal and popped into the Courthouse Annex to vote absentee since we’ll be gone on Election Day. That took about ten minutes. I was the only one there. Two voting clerks made sure things went smoothly. I needed some ingredients for my cooking adventure. I trundled out the mile or so to a supermarket on my way home.
Just before 2:00, I pulled into my driveway ready for a writing afternoon! Image doing all of that in a little over two hours in NYC, Houston or Amarillo!
There’s something to be said for small town life!

If you'd like to see some more scenes of Bainbridge, go to my webpage, http://www.trillap.com and click on Bainbridge. It's a work in progress!
More on small town living in the next few days.

Professor Elcan's lillies

One day it is a patch of twenty shades of green nestling under the century and a half old first-growth long leaf pines and the ten year old cedar that once was our Christmas tree. Then one early morning, I take my cup of coffee out for a stroll in the morning cool, and suddenly find the blaze of pink.
There's been a a blaze of pink under those whispering pines for (we think) over 70 years. Professor Elan (see yesterday's post) was a vigorous gardner and his efforts still glow forth in many ways, especially in these lillies.
I asked his daughter, who grew up in this house and who has been beyond generous in helping me learning the its history, when her dad planted the lillies. She shook her head. They've always been there.
Standing among them I almost see the good professor, trowel in hand putting in lillies, probably a housewarming gift from a friend's garden, on a lazy evening in the summer of 1933.
In 19 years I've divided these beauties only once. I shared my ( and Professor Elcan's) bounty with friends and neighbors all over town. Pink blaze is every where!
My local gardening friends call these 'crinum lillies.' I'd love to know if there is another name.
A note on our home. It has a name, given by the Elcan family, Whispering Pines. Bob resisted keeping the name because it seemed ordinary and trite to him--until we spent a few evenings in the porch swing on the big, shady front porch not talking but listening. He came around. Whispering Pines is the perfect name.
Here are Professor Elcan's lillies with a swipe of blue salvia in the early morning hours of this day.

Coming up daisies

In one of my earliest postings to this blog I showed a lonely daisy bravely blooming on a January-bare bank. Now in summer-verdant June a host of her daisy sisters brighten that same bank. They are a welcoming sight to all who pass.
The lillies blooming with the daisies are friendship flowers from the gardens of neighbors. Some came in exchange for some of the daisy sisters.
Our yellow and white vernacular bungelow is in the background. I've lived in it for 19 years and loved every minute and every inch of it. I didn't know what vernacular meant as an architectural term until someone told me that it is a house that more-or-less happens. This house certainly did.
It began as a "four-square" farm house around 1910. (A four-square house is perfectly square with four identical rooms.) In 1933, the local school superintendent, Professor Elcan, purchased the house. It was in the center of a citrus grove. He made substantial changes adding several rooms and the big front porch. If you climb up in my attic you will find the roof of the original house, shingles and all. In 1997, when we'd been here for ten years, we added a bedroom wing that retains the 1933 appearance.
While the Elcans lived in the house, the citrus grove slowly disappeared. A cow named Beauty lived in the back yard. Professor and Mrs. Elcan were enthusiastic gardeners. We still enjoy the azaleas and lillies that they planted over seventy years ago! The side yard has returned to wildness through the years but occasionally as I ramble through it I run across a border or a blossom to remind me that this spot has been a loved home for many years by many people.
I've lived here now almost as long as the Elcans did, but locally it's still known as the Elcan Place. Probably always will be.

Downtown on the square

As in many small towns, community life in Bainbridge centers around our downtown square. We’re a little different. Our courthouse does not dominate this town center. It is on the corner across the street. The square is a park complete with a gazebo/bandstand, lovely flowers, memorials, a cannon and the almost requisite Confederate soldier. Oh, and a goldfish pond.
It’s where we gather on Christmas Eve to listen to the Bainbridge Brass Band and join our neighbors in singing carols, where the high schoolers promenade before the big Prom, where we have our annual Artsfest Saturday morning.
This year on Flag Day we gathered again to welcome National Guard members home from Iraq, listen to one of our favorite daughters sing patriotic songs and share our lunch.
Small town living at its very best.

What a difference a week makes--

Just a week later. A few old granddaddy pecan trees are still holding off; the rest have join into the general welcome and adorned themselves with spring finery!

We've been off in Atlanta celebrating the fresh season with a troop of grandchildren. Lots of ways to have fun in Atlanta--from the world's greatest, and largest, aquarium to hockey (go Thrashers!), the zoo (the Pandos love Pandas!) and a backyard waterfight. Somethings never change.

Is spring here?

The town is blooming and the countryside is not far behind. Wisteria is everywhere. It must be spring. Maybe not! Local lore says that it is not spring until the pecans leaf out. The bottle brush and wisteria, the Carolina silver bell and dianthus say "Welcome!" The pecans are still thinking about it.

Foolin' around in April

What better way to spend a Saturday that just happens to be April 1, than hanging out on the Flint River--doing not much of anything?

Catch a crow taking in the view. Watch families at play. For lunch--fried catfish at a picnic table. (the crow got the French fries!)

It's a great place for a book--or a nap!

March is frolicking out like a lamb. We have mid-80s sunshine and mild breezes. It was so lovely at noon, we couldn’t stay inside to have our fast-food salad. We headed to the beautiful Flint River and soaked in spring from the banks. Experienced an unexpected bit of togetherness as well. Our sack contained two salads, two packages of dressing, but only one fork. So we took turns. The joys of married life.
The pink azaleas have bid farewell; the white ones are still lovely. The dogwoods snow showers of blossoms onto to greening lawns. Most lovely this week is the elegant Carolina Silver Bell.

Bainbridge, Georgia is like little towns (we’re about 10,000 people—neither growing nor shrinking) all across the South—all across America, but like every one of those other little towns we have our special ways and special moments.
This happy (almost) spring weekend we’re enjoying two of those.
For the first, we look back and thank our city’s leaders of thirty, forty, maybe fifty years ago. Someone may know, but no one seems sure. The city began to give away dogwood trees every spring. Not big trees, not even saplings, switches really. The kind you could probably buy four for a dollar. But these trees were free. They went home with school children, the firemen handed the out down at the station, or folks dropped by city hall. And they planted them, they planted them all over town, year after year. They watered them, they fertilized them, and the dogwoods grew, then grew some more. Today, every spring, from the middle of March until about the first of April, the town floats in a snowy mist; the blossoms cover the tiny leaves, they seem suspended, they take our breath away.
When we recover, we head downtown for our other special moment—Artsfest—when every year (this is the nineteenth) we celebrate the art and culture of one particular United State and art and culture in general. This is for the community, especially for our children. More about that tomorrow after the final festival in the square amid the azaleas and, yes, dogwoods.
Meanwhile, enjoy a wisteria blossom in my back garden. They tell us wisteria is invasive here; that we should rip it out. Every year we think we will, and then it blooms!

The Ides of March

One should beware the Ides of March in South Georgia. Their beauty is almost beyond bearing. The azaleas are in full flower—especially the old-fashioned, bright pink Formosas. These at my house are over 70-years-old and get more and more vibrant.

Hope I learn from them!

I’ve been so busy with March, I have neglected the blog. But I’ll be back. I hope tomorrow with dogwood pictures—they float.

And good, good news! Bob learned this morning that he passed all those pesky tests. But no champaign this time. Once is enough!

Celebration

Celebration! March 2 was a great day around our place.

One of those back-of-the-mind, never-going-to-happen dreams has lurked in the back of Bob’s head since he was the only Merit Scholar in the 1956 Golden Sandie graduating class in Amarillo, Texas.
“Sure would be fun to be a scholar!” Life, of course, brought other interesting, fun and fulfilling (and some not fulfilling and not fun) outcomes.
Now that back-of-the-mind dream is coming true. Yesterday he finished his comprehensive examination in history at Florida State University. He has orals to go and the dissertation—but those seem minor.
He won’t get the test results for a while, but today—we don’t care. They’re done.
Last night, Bob celebrated with a little champaign and caviar.

Memoir and small things

More on memoir and on small things. I’ve been off blog visiting. The oft-quoted here Susan Albert at Lifescapes discusses smallest things—the importance of the tiny things in her outsized countryside of Texas. She shares a picture of a tiny lichen.
I referred a Massachusetts friend to the site. She replies with enthusiasm. Her neighbor is a lichen expert—showing I suppose that among other small things is the world.
Susan’s picture sent me back into the garden camera in hand. Instead of stepping back from my glorious plum tree, I moved in closely and saw a whole new world. Made a new friend while I was doing it.
Tiny things are important not just in nature. I’m nibbling away at working on my childhood memories. I’ve chose the summer I turned eleven. It was a summer of decision for my family, particularly for my writer-dad. I find if I focus on tiny details—what did we eat, what books did I read, movies did I see (easy Show Boat-over and over), what did that lonely rent house look like—then I see the bigger picture more clearly. The story I want to tell, the story that wants to be told emerges.
I’m looking for help on the details. I went to the library and read ancient Time magazines, bought a cd of the great hits of 1951, and asked my sister. I was eleven that summer, she was fifteen. What different worlds we lived in! But as we talk (“I didn’t know that!” I exclaim, and a few minutes later she echoes me) we are pleased to fine that while the tiny things differ, we are together on much. We are talking about things we’ve never discussed before.
That is no small thing.
Neither is the help Susan Albert gave me. She’s a good teacher and taught me how to insert a proper link. Here’s the way to get to Story Circle Network and read Susan’s great talk! http://www.storycircle.org

No more promises--spring is here

The last day of the month; tomorrow March will roar or gentle in. Supposing it will be like today, I’m looking for lamb-like. Here in South Georgia we don’t have to wait until March 21 for spring. It’s no longer just a promise; it is pounding at my study door insisting that I step outside.
The earliest flowering tree to appear in our acre and a half is the flowering plum. The first blossom peaked out about four weeks ago only to be frightened back by our first and only hard frost of the year. Over the last week, the tree has come into her own, as the two pictures show, and she is joined around the garden by Japanese magnolia and redbud. The birds are waking earlier and singing a little more cheerily. They are as happy to see young Spring as I am.
That's our vernacular farmhouse bungalow in the background. The house started out as a four-square farmhouse in 1910. In the early thirties, the Elcan family added the porch and doubled the size of the house. In 1997, we added a masterbed. It is certainly the little house that grew.

Love blows in on the Llano Estacado

February 25, 1956—Amarillo, Texas, fifty years ago today. The drought-ridden Llano Estacado had tried to blow itself away the day before. The dust storm had raged and ravaged until well past midnight. I’d been out in it on a date. Got home late. Mother was mad. I was fifteen.
Fifteen, and supposed to go to a debate tournament in Lubbock after the excitment of the night before. I was due at the coach’s house about 15 minutes ago, at 5:30 a.m. Mother wanted me to skip it. I was so sick—I sounded like a bull frog. But no. A debater doesn’t let her partner down.
I hopped out of our car into Mrs. Hall’s and almost onto the lap of this senior boy. He looked at his watch. Mighty cute that Bob Pando.
By Plainview, it was plain to me. He says he knew sooner, he liked the way I sounded.
Bob and Trilla as Amarillo High School Sandie Seniors. 1956 and 1957.
25 years later—on the town in Houston
Now

Stories from the heart

Stories from the Heart, for the third time the women of Story Circle Network (http://www.storycircle.org/) joined to share their stories at a weekend conference in Austin the first weekend in February. It provided such inspiration that I had to mull a while before writing about it. Well over 100 women joined in. We wrote, we read, we listened.
Why tell your stories? One red cowgirl-hatted widowed grandmother lugged a huge book she’d prepared for her family and her family alone. It begins with story of her parents’ romance and ends with an account of her ballroom dancing exploits with her new “best friend.” Others have are writing their stories as memoirs for publication (many have already been published) or are crafting their experiences into fictions. As many reasons as the many women.
We focused on strength and truth—how telling the truth gives a woman strength and how strong women do not step away from telling the truth.
Timely, indeed, for truth-telling has been much in the news in recent days with the long discussions of what is a memoir, what is fiction, what is memory? Our memories are our own. No one else can change them. Through the years I’ve almost joked, almost fought with my sister about our differing memories of the same events. We’ve finally called truce realizing that these two people have different—but still true—stories.
The fine climax of the Conference was Susan Albert’s final talk about strong women and tale-telling. She took a deep, wonderful and strong approach—sharing her own truth. And she keeps on sharing. There is a link to the speech on the Story Circle website. Scroll down the left side index until you find it—it’s under “Who We Are.” Then post a comment here! Trilla and Susan are sharing coffee and stories in the picture.
I’ll be writing more about truth-telling and memory. I promised myself that I’d start a childhood memoir as soon as I got home. I did! And already, I’m facing some of those hard issues.

more promises of spring

We’ve had our winter cold. For us, 28 degrees is chilling. My much loved winter coat, a reminder of a splendid trip to Argentina, gets her biennial outing. And while we stepped out in the cold to join friends for a Valentine/birthday dinner, we had guests in the house. I shared my study with the cold sensitive blood orange—already putting out its spring leaves—here Dotty-the-cat guards it.
In spite of the freezing weather, the early jonquils continue to brighten the days. The azaleas are promising an early spring.
I’ve been home from Austin and the inspiring Stories from the Heart Conference of Story Circle Network. It has been much on my mind, but not yet in my writing. I promise myself a posting by this day’s end musing on truth, life and telling the truth about our lives.

Tangle of spring

Just a week later, the first day of February—here’s the same Japanese magnolia tree load with blooms in a tangle of spring.
It’s about the same every year, we say, “it’s early this year!” Still, there are always magnolias around the first of February. I found a few azaleas peeking out in the driveway. But the real sure sign of an early season—Bob came in with a finger full of yellow pollen from our first-growth long-leaf pines. This is at least two or three weeks early.
I am off for Texas and the Story Circle Conference. I’ll go to a blogging panel. I’m planning to come home with many new ideas and resolutions. Not to mention more tangles of blossoms!