Melancholy

Hello All!

I can't sleep tonite, and I am lying here with so much going thru my head.  I don't know what it is, but Autumn always makes me melancholy, remembering faces, moments, Autumn colors in Vermont, old ways, country roads, etc.  I made applesauce tonite, and it reminded me of when my Mom did the same, and when I made it with my children.   With Thanksgiving coming upon us, I am remembering Thanksgivings with my brothers and sisters and parents in the big old house in Massachusetts.

We were ten children, Mom & Dad, and sometimes my Grandmother, or an Aunt and her son.  I don't remember times when all ten of us children were there at the same time.  My memory starts more when the older boys were in the Air Force and away most of the time, and most of the younger ones at home.  I don't know how my Mother did it all, taking care of so many, cooking and doing laundry for so many.   But she did, and she did it with love for us children, especially.

It was a very large house, with many bedrooms, a large kitchen and living room, a fireplace, and two large porches, which my Father added long after we bought the house.  I loved the kitchen most of all.  Dad had made a table out of a door, as we needed something very large to accommodate everyone at meals.   And I remember everyone at that table, especially at holidays, with the boys teasing one another, and we girls helping Mom put the food out.  I remember especially the pies!  Mom made so many pies!  And all kinds.  Apple, of course, several, pumpkin, mince meat, apricot, berry,  and of course, they didn't last long.  Dad loved pie, as did all of us.  I learned to make pies from my Mom, of course, but could never seem to duplicate hers.  I think it was the love she put in.

I remember summers there.  The huge garden Dad and the boys made.  The tomatoes, cukes, radishes, corn, green beans, peas, and everything else you can think of.  We all had to work in the

garden, but oh, the wonderful tastes that came out of it.   Corn, for this family, was several dozen at
one time.  And you had to eat it fast, if you wanted to have more than one.  I could never keep up with the boys.  Corn has never tasted the same as in those days, with salt and pepper, and butter dripping off.   Later, a bunch of us would pile in the old station wagon,  (the kind with the wood on the sides), and we would go to get ice cream.  I didn't like ice cream all that much, so I would want a hot dog!  My favorite!  We didn't have bikes, but we could walk anywhere in the country, so we would go to the pond, or into the woods, or sit on the log that Dad felled across the brook.  Or just play on the lawn, under the big oak trees.   And then, after a long Winter, in the Spring, we would make maple syrup right out in the back yard, over a big fire, from the maple trees we had.

So many memories.   They are wonderful to think about.  But it is 3:00 a.m., and I should get some sleep.   The memories have given me contentment, so I should be able to nod off soon.

See you..........Later........ JO

Afterthought:  Finally fell asleep around four a.m., and arose at ten-thirty, and am sitting reading an old Gladys Taber favorite, (Stillmeadow Seasons), and found this sentence.

"How many journeys the mind makes -- and how wonderful that it may do so!"     Gladys Taber