I am still in Fairborn at The Redoubt because the route back to Kendallville is a hazardous trek through counties with various levels of travel restriction levels. I suggested people send me pictures of the driveway, but they did not, so I am adhering to the adage that ignorance is bliss.

Shipshewana had 16-18″ of snow. Of course, that doesn’t include the drifts which were especially bad on East/West roads. The county road where the house is, is an old Indian trail running from Defiance, Ohio to White Pigeon, Michigan and it’s pretty much east to west.
Hwy 30 going into Fort Wayne is East/West and, oh, there were white-out conditions.

Here in Fairborn, we lucked out, getting rain and spitting snow, but then it stopped and the roads didn’t freeze – at least those that are covered with layers of salt. Everyone was prepared for the base to close on Monday, but there wasn’t even a delay. It looked as if I could just hop in the car and go home. Well, I could have hopped in the car and headed north, but more than likely, I would have wound up sitting in a fast food parking lot somewhere, waiting out the road clearing process.

So here I sit, all warm and cozy. Der Bingle, by the way is on the way to the airport to try to get to San Diego, BUT he is to change flights in Detroit and that ain’t good. Flights are being delayed and he may make it to Detroit and no farther. I honestly feel guilty about sitting here. He’s flown in bombers over enemy territory, and cargo planes across the Pacific and countless commercial flights for our family. And not only the flying, the dashing through airports, the long delays . . . Thank you, Der Bingle.

Oddly enough, reading through a couple of the Wickham Remembrances, I found myself considering more recent happenings:

I can’t remember the last time I sat down to flip some of the pages in the Wickham Family Reunion Photograph Book. It is bittersweet, the memories of picnics and the people who were there, and who are not here any longer.

That is not to say that the Wickham Clan has diminished; in fact, there are tons of descendents and they still gather to catch up on old times and long-established feuds. And, no, I am not going to even mention the Potato Salad Controversy, let alone put forth an opinion.

However, when you’ve been to a few decades of reunions, you find yourself evolving from the wet behind the ears whipper-snapper listening to probably exaggerated stories to the old geezer telling them, with your own embellishments. And you can almost hear the earlier generation of geezers exclaiming, “No, no, no. You’ve got it wrong. It wasn’t Henry who backed into the Turkey Deep Fryer with a 1953 Chevy pick-up; it was Elias. Henry ran over the giant garden rendition of the American Flag at Aunt Emma’s on July 4th of “73.” Oh, yeah, that’s right. Heaven’s to Betsey, that made a mess – not only to the patriotic flower bed over which Emma had labored, but to Henry’s face, which she slammed in the car door . . . repeatedly until Cousin Stan pulled her off.

But then bittersweet isn’t bad, compared to what’s happening these days when photos are not just in an album to be passed around. No, today there is Facebook, there is Twitter, there is Instagram.

Just minutes after Justin put the kebobs over the fire too long, they flamed up, torching the edge of the canopy tent. Louie tried to put it out immediately by swinging the large lemonade pitcher, launching the liquid upward to wet the cloth. It was a herculean effort and might have retarded the flames if Anna had not liberally spiked her “Lemonade with a Bite” with alcohol. The recipe had been handed down through the years since Prohibition, when it had been especially effective in boosting attendance in that depressed era – and sending home temporarily happier folks.

Justin, to his credit, did manage to use the garden hose to finally put the fire out. Unfortunately, it was right at the beginning of the Reunion and not enough “Lemonade” had been imbibed to put people in a good humor when the blast of water soaked them along with the main buffet table. Justin had known this might happen, being a physics teacher who was well aware of the adage that what goes up must come down. He had felt it best not to let the canopy burn out of control.

Had he taught psychology, he might have let the thing burn and used the water to start a party-sized and industrial strength lemonade drink by partially filling the old washtub with water, while calling for lemons, the “special ingredient” and ice.

But he did not.

I would not say there was rioting, but folks were agitated

You couldn’t hear the sound of cell phone cameras recording the scene, but very shortly thereafter, the exclamations of those watching replays of the action overrode the laments of those looking at the slushy three bean salad, the dripping jell-o sculpture, the soggy hot dog buns, and so on.

That’s just the beginning. For weeks, people couldn’t resist watching the whole thing “one more time” on YouTube – sort of a local Tickle Me Elmo phenomenon that leaves everyone laughing. Almost everyone.

Justin, of course, was not pleased. The Wickhams wouldn’t use the word laughing stock, idiot and bozo aloud, but they did think them and Justin was certain he could see cartoon bubbles above everyone’s heads with those exact words in them.

Poor Louie was punched in the nose by Henry, who was temporarily deranged by the sight of the “lemonade” flying up and away like a Carrie Nation fast ball.

Actually, I have to go now. I feel this urge to put the photo album down and just have a look at YouTube myself.

Don’t mention it to Der Bingle, but I’m really going to City Barbecue – and, with luck, this lunch will not be followed by a quick trip back to Lagrange because of a break-in. I may twist his arm and have him grab another Hot Head Burrito – or maybe a sub. I may think I am on the Road to The Redoubt, but it seems as if I am on The Road to Perdition when it comes to dieting.

I opened another Wickhan file . That’s a warning.

Malcolm Falls has been such an idyllic little town to live in that R. Simon Wickham, aged 68, was quite taken aback when he came out of the Back Door Café, turned the corner and saw what appeared to be gang members – yes, gang members, clustered around what the younger generation would refer to as a pimped out RV. “Pimped out” being defined somewhere as “having excessive embellishments or ornaments, particularly of the flashy kind.”

Well, at least that is how the RV appeared to Simon; scenes from the James Dean movie “Rebel Without a Cause” were painted on the sides – and it was the kind of artistry in which the eyes of characters appeared to follow a passerby. He also noticed that there were about six other huge RV’s lined up, all with distinctive paint jobs and some with gold rims.

Simon was unnerved. Malcolm Falls was a place of picket fences and soda shops, band concerts on the courthouse lawn, Friday night high school basketball crowds.

It was not a place of “pimped out” RV’s.

In fact, how did Simon even know the phrase “pimped out?” Oh, yeah, reading the big city newspapers. He looked at the gang members and a strange shudder passed through him – his world was changing . . . or maybe not. There was something familiar about the group.

“Lucas? Lucas, is that you?” Simon choked out. The fellow in the black leather jacket with “Grey Lion” on the back turned and grinned a warm hello. Striding forward, he reached Simon quickly and slapped him on the back: “Hey, how’s it going? Haven’t seen you since our 45th reunion at Yale.

For some reason, Simon didn’t want to say he had been on the croquet circuit during the summer and playing chess with some other retirees from his old accounting firm, so he said, “Big game hunting.” He figured Lucas was envisioning a lion’s head mounted on his den wall, or at least a moose, while he, Simon, could only see maybe a giant rook or Queen’s pawn over the mantle.
To change the direction of the conversation, Simon thought fast on his feet and asked, “Uh, and what have you been doing?”

Lucas beamed and extended his arm at the giant RV, “Well, Maude and I got tired of retirement and decided to follow the example of your Aunt Bernice.” Ah yes, Simon remembered his Aunt Bernice who had traveled around the Pacific Rim paragliding over volcanoes when she was in her 80’s and he responded, rather dully, “Oh, yes, Aunt Bernice.”

“Yes indeed, Bernice Wickham,” Lucas said, awe in his voice. “She had a great funeral, too, a real celebration of life – her ashes blown into the sky from a cannon.”

Lucas pointed at a 43-footer in the line and said, “Lloyd and Sue read Bernice’s autobiography and checked out of their retirement home and got their RV. We’ve got about 37 folks in our group now. We’re searching for our own volcanoes.” Of course, Lucas was speaking metaphorically.

Both men were silent for a while. Lucas’ face a mixture of admiration and sadness; Simon’s one of inadequacy.

Yes, Simon was once again reminded that he was the black sheep Wickham – always conforming to the mainstream mold, never once even considering doing anything until it was well established and, if necessary, covered by his insurance policy.

He also realized in that moment that Lucas would know he was lying about the big game hunting remark; heck the most adventurous he had ever been was to be the point after man on the football team – sometimes it rained and the ball was slippery. What had they called him? Oh, yeah, “Ole Sure Shoe Simon.”

He once thought he had heard one of his Wickham cousins say “Simply Simon.” That’s what he was, actually, without an eccentricity to his name.

All at once, he realized Lucas was talking about how he and Maude had decided to embrace life . . . and the American Highway and the National Park Systems. “Well, Simon.” Lucas began, “We were going to first go on motorcycles and then Maude saw a picture of an RV in a magazine.”
Simon nodded.

Lucas invited him inside the RV . . . and the transformation of Simon began. It was big – 45 feet of pure luxury with two TV’s and a walk-in closet in the bedroom, not to mention the stacked washer/driver and Granite Entry Steps – we kid you not.

Lucas pointed out some of the features: “Yes, sir, Simon, this baby has a Series 60 Detroit Diesel 515 HP engine with Allison® 4000 MH 6-Speed world transmission and electronic shifter, heavy-duty steel superstructure with steel cage cockpit construction, triple head power controlled heated chrome exterior mirrors with turn Indicator lights, a 40? LCD TV in living area ceiling, and – the piece de resistance – dual trumpet air horns.” He said more, but Simon simply wasn’t listening anymore.

He had finally felt the call of his heritage and asked, “So where do you get one of these babies?” Lucas looked at Simon and saw the newly-lit gleam in his eye and exclaimed, “Buddy, that’s easy; the hard part is picking out a name for your jacket.”

So if you’re cruising along the highway and pass a line of RV’s and if you hear the sound of a dual trumpet air horn shake you out of your socks, there’s a good chance you’ve crossed the path of Richard Simon Wickham, aka “Cruiser with the Oldies.”

I fell into a period of reading a few books that go beyond Clive Cussler and the incredibly perfect Dirk Pitt who once drove an undersea vehicle around, if not the Mariana’s Trench, then another really long one, and exited the ocean on a beach while tourists stared.

I don’t know why, really. Perhaps escapism, perhaps the draw of serials and soap operas that can suck you in . . .

One was a switched at birth novel (free) and the other was a time travel type story (free) involving an old Nazi ship and eventually a Gypsy-like curse – which totally reduced the time travel part to a footnote. I say the books were free on Kindle; but I paid. I have no idea why I kept paying, unless it was something like the draw of an old-fashioned freak show: Come on in and see the amazing coincidences that you won’t believe – just one thin dime for each unveiling. How about you there on the sofa. Yes, you. You know you’re curious.

I’ve got to get a grip on myself.

Quite a few years ago, I needed a story for a filler – a little comic piece of nothing – and so I sat down and wrote about the Wickham Family from Malcolm Falls. I don’t know where the characteristics and idiosyncrasies of the members of the family came from, although there may or may not be some resemblance to my own relatives.

The Wickham Saga took on a life of its own and every month I would reveal one of the better-forgotten stories. This morning, something triggered my memory of Lydia Wickham and I decided to search my files. Well, I am going to have to go through some old hard drives to find her. BUT, some other episodes popped up.

I read through a couple, groaning. Misery loves company, however, so I’m pasting it here:

I don’t know why but Becky Wickham decided that she wanted to get married at the Grand Canyon – or rather in it. Actually, rafting down the Colorado River with the canyon looming above them – the groom, herself, the minister and the best man and maid of honor and guests floating along in accompanying rafts.

Well, I do know why. She told me and anyone who would listen that she thought bouncing along on the river would be a good metaphor for a marriage moving through time. She might have been right about the metaphor but when the she and her fiancé took a dry run – so to speak – down the river she decided she was wrong about the idea in general when somewhere between the first and second rapids the boat hit a rock and started losing air. The story gets a little confusing here as to who could and who could not swim but apparently the end result was that Becky and her fiancé weren’t exactly really all that devoted to each other.

Well, that’s why Becky wound up teaching third grade at the Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School on Taft Street in Malcolm Falls. That may be a little too much of a simplification. Just because she didn’t get married didn’t mean she had to teach, or come back to Malcolm Falls for that matter.

It was just that it was easier for her to spend the year recovering from breaking her leg just as she was climbing the last step out of the Grand Canyon at her folks’ house. The cast was really big and clunky and it was a big help to have her parents with her, although her mother’s cat got the worst of the deal when the chair Becky had propped her leg up on tipped over. During the latter part of her recuperation, her father took a picture of her sitting on the sofa, cast on her leg, cuddling the cat on her lap. It was the fact that the cat had her own personalized and signed matching cast that made the whole appear “adorable” to her mother’s bridge club.

Everyone liked the 8 by 10 glossy print of the picture so well that her parents decided to have it reproduced as a large portrait and hung it over the fireplace – where it didn’t look quite so charming but no one wanted to cast the first stone of criticism.

Anyway, while Becky was sitting there in her folks’ family room, reading and watching TV and waiting for her leg to mend, a bunch of people were building a grade school down the hill from the house. Becky had graduated with a degree in elementary education but the all the positions had already been filled for the new school, so teaching there was not an option.

At least it wasn’t a possibility until people started to argue about what the new school should be named. With the exception of a small group of people who wanted it to be called the Erasmus Fletcher School after the man who built the first rope bridge across the falls, the town was divided right down the middle between Franklin Roosevelt and Theodore Roosevelt.

You actually couldn’t say the dispute got ugly, but you would definitely be safe in stating that the painting of the girl, the cat and the two casts was easier to look at.

It was sometime in February when the two factions sat down to see if they couldn’t stick to a big session of soft-speaking debate and reach a new deal that would bring the two sides together – not unlike the way the Panama Canal linked the two major oceans.

The FDR group found the analogy somewhat unsettling but decided not to hide and parked themselves at the table. After all, what did they have to fear? Why nothing, of course.

So it was that Teddy Wickham stood up and said, “Well, let’s think of this in terms of neighbors. Say, I’ve got a neighbor who has a baby and they haven’t got a name for it, so I’ll lend him my first name – Theodore. Now let’s say, the neighbor on the other side is Mr. Roosevelt and he says well, he’ll lease him his last name. Wouldn’t that be a happy day again?”

Well, of course, the FDR section smiled and thought, “Ha, we’ve got the last name. Better sign the agreement quick.” Just as the ink was drying on the paper, one of the brighter bulbs on the FDR side – Edison Wickham – exclaimed, “Now, wait a New York minute.”

But it was too late. There on the paper the final name was written: The Theodore Roosevelt Elementary School. For a couple of weeks, the two sides didn’t speak to each other too much and down at the Baptist Church where a majority of the congregation was on the FDR side, the minister got up in the pulpit and called the TR supporters bullies. But sooner than later, things settled down and people started talking to each other again at the oyster supper at the Bay Restaurant.

There were some grudges, such as Edison getting a dog, naming him Fala and training him to “garden” in Teddy Wickham’s rose bed, but mainly the FDR faction simply made a point of telling visitors that the school was actually named after Franklin Roosevelt’s last name. Then after awhile they stopped doing that – it just seemed better to be quiet.

Of course, the TR group realized they didn’t have a snowball’s change in . . . whatever of having the sport teams being called the Bull Mooses – and didn’t even bring it up.

But, Becky? Oh, one of the third grade teachers was so disgusted he quit and so she took the job and four years later married the principal in the south where he couldn’t get cold feet because they always have warm springs.

So, a great many of young people don’t know who Ray Milland is; well, if they want a true education they had better learn. He is known for The Lost Weekend and back when older movie stars eagerly agreed to be on Columbo, he was the one in which Peter Falk stuck a potato is a tail pipe. I know, never mind.

But, on Saturday morning I got a call in Fairborn, Ohio that the house in LaGrange had been broken into. So I ate lunch at City Barbeque and then headed back. You see, I have my priorities straight. I sent Der Bingle out to get gas in my car and a Hot Head Burrito for the road and while he was gone, I packed up the shortbread cookies with only a wee bit of guilt.

The sheriff deputies had gone through the house with drawn guns and the window was fixed by the time I got there. It was a quiet time – surrounded by drawers pulled out and emptied – and I established a presence and picked up a little. Then I sat and read and nibbled on shortbread and burrito and peanut butter and planned how I would eventually clean up. I did that Saturday night, all day Sunday and the entire morning today.

I am now resting from all that reading and carbohydrating. Der Bingle, somewhat miffed by the disappearance of all the shortbread, has dubbed me the Carbohydrate Queen. A small price to pay. However, I believe I wasn’t thinking about the long term. Now when I go to the Ohio Redoubt, I will probably have to ask on bended knee for shortbread and be blindfolded while it is removed from a locked place. That price is higher.

I completed most of Part 2 of Section One of getting the basement in order. I had a fire burning while I did the dirty work and then I sat and enjoyed its warmth and watched a movie, sitting in my Morris chair.

This is the chair my mother sat in when she was little and sick and the chair I sat in under the same circumstances. Grandma would put a table leaf across the arms and it made a nice little desk. Then, when I was tired, I would push the plunger on the side and recline.

One arm has the curve sawed partly off so it would fit in a certain spot when Mother was little. Bing Crosby once mentioned his Morris chair in song lyrics. And, actually, I still put a table leaf across the arms. It’s an old-fashioned recliner and that’s okay.

I have reached a new low. A pun – see post title – popped into my head and I could have used will power and pushed it out, but it was so easy to think about the day the water main connection broke in front of our house. At that time, although other towns considered it a city responsibility, mine did not. So it cost me the equivalent of two MacBooks to have the spot, located right by the curb, fixed.

It was interesting to hear the men standing in the really deep hole talking about the shortcut way the connection had been made in the first place. It was interesting to remember that a short while past the town had widened the road and had very heavy machinery digging and grinding and jackhammering right over the connection that broke. Ah, but that’s all water under the . . . well, rats, I can’t think of a pun for bridge. I’m forced to leave it as a cliché.

When my mind gets like this, even I get a bit scared. Of course, Guido always thinks I’m a hoot. Or did he say kook?

Fluctuating between feeling really tired and then determined to get something accomplished and then frustrated with myself and reading, reading, reading, I decided it would be best not to watch any football because I so wanted Green Bay to win and because I so wanted the Patriots to lose. I had the psychic feeling that neither was going to happen.

Then someone came out and said Green Bay had won; that’s because they did what a lot of Seahawk fans did, left the game early. But for the moment, I was pleased, thinking it was good that they had won and that it was good that my psychic feeling about bad things was not always right. Having found out the truth, I just could not even consider knowing anything about the Colt’s game.

Do you know you can hear outraged screaming from a long way off? The part about the ball hitting the face mask and being a fumble and that hooligan Tom Brady’s team getting a touchdown was re-enacted by the screamer out where I was sitting. And then more screaming and “I can’t take it!”

It is a sad day for Cheeseheads.

Gee, I believe my mood is not too positive this Monday morning. Ya think?

Remember all the little old ladies on TV shows in the past that referred to Elderberry Wine? No? Well, that’s okay. Well, I have my version of that and it’s worked pretty well to fortify my constitution, dontcha know. However, I have developed a mild cold; at first, I thought I was going to be laid low because my thigh muscles were burning, my back hurt and my nose was stuffing and then running.

This morning, however, I don’t feel too bad – a little scratchiness in my throat and a bit of pressure in my ears, but I do not sound like the people in the area who have been so congested that when they cough, you think their lungs are going to come oozing out.

I think I’m going to start thinking of the supplement as not an extract of Elderberry, but as AmeliaJake’s Elderberry Wine “Recipe.” Sort of like Papa’s Recipe that the Baldwin sisters had on the Walton’s – Miss Emily and Miss Mamie.

Remembering those two, I recall they took turns answering the telephone – only they would get confused on whose turn it was and often never picked up. I miss the Walton’s; Ike’s General Store was like the one close to the LaGrange County house. When I was very little, my parents tucked a coin in my hand and I went over all by myself to get a bag of candy “kern” as I called it. (I think, though, that I did not really go alone; I suspect I had a shadow.

We used to get Pokagon soda pop there. At first they got me orange until I was old enough to indicate I preferred strawberry. I have a very vague memory of trying to figure out how to drink out of the bottle without putting my entire mouth around it. It seemed like a very big deal at the time. Those were the days when the soda pop was kept in a bath of ice water and you slid it along a slot to get it out.

That is one of the reasons I think I like City Barbeque in Beavercreek so well. It is homely like an old general store and they stash their sodas and beers in a long tub of icy slush, not to mention the food is very, very good.

.

I was going to indulge this weekend, but decided to put the trip off ’til I felt more energized. Now, I am thinking of Cheerwine and wondering if I am too much of a wimp. That tank looks so inviting and I can just about taste the sandwich.