Often when the weather forecasts bode ill, I drawl out a “Wellllll . . .”  That is my way of acknowledging the possible storm tracks, wind or no wind, dry snow or wet snow or, ack, the dreaded snow/freezing rain mixture. BUT, we’re due and looking at the radar, it would be prudent to check our peanut butter supplies, locate the snow shovels, put salt in the back and front vestibules and line up some books – they don’t require electricity, dontcha know.

Schools are closed. The temperature is 16 degrees and snow is packed on the roads. Not that much yet, but it’s packed there, smoothed by the passage of the plows. I know because I took Alison to work for her 12-hour nursing shift at the hospital. They are telling the nurses they will come and get them if necessary; the part about coming home rides is uncertain. We may see her in a day or so.

So begins the “storm of historic proportions” aka “the monster storm” as it is being called. Even if we were to be sort of historically skimmed, other places nearby could be buried in drifts and it would be like Maine: You can’t get there from here.

We will see.

We have firewood and oil lamps and blankets and I’ve got a phone charger that works off the car . . . that now has a full tank of gas.

We are little piggies and we are waiting for the wolf.

Aha. After I wrote about Sherman Malcolm below, I decided I would check the US Census for his name and perhaps find out other information. Gee, I wish Mother were alive  because I could call and tell her Sherman was born in Edgar, Illinois in March of 1865 and Sara was not his first wife. He married a lady named Alice in 1893 and she died in 1903 in Frankfort, Indiana. I don’t know if Grandma knew this. I feel like I need to go to the cemetery and exclaim, “Mother, you are not going to believe this!”

His full name was Peter Sherman Malcolm and his father was John Riggs Malcolm and his mother Mary Elizabeth O’Hair. Sherman was named after his grandfather and his father, John, was named after his grandfather.

He showed up on three public family trees, one of which was a Fowler tree. Grandma’s mother was a Fowler.

See where curiosity can take you.

Whoever thought Sherman Malcolm would be mentioned on a blog in 2011. He may have known my mother existed since she was born a year before he died. It’s a complicated story because I have bits and pieces, and as far as I know, Grandma and Mother only knew little bits.

Sherman Malcolm was married to my Great Great Aunt Sara. She was Grandma’s father’s youngest sister; it was if my great  great grandparents had two families – three boys and  years later, three girls. Wesley was the oldest and my great grandfather; Sara was the youngest and only four years older than my grandmother, Wesley’s daughter. Both girls, my grandma, Jessie, and my great great aunt, Sara, went to college and became teachers.

Grandma married first and eventually Sara married Sherman Malcolm who was an Encyclopedia Britannia salesman. They traveled around the country and Sara kept a journal – about which I will talk later. Every now and then they would come and vacation at my grandmother’s.

And Sherman would go ice fishing. Grandma liked the name Malcolm and gave the name to her son as a middle name.

Then things get fuzzy.

Sara and Sherman got divorced and she got a job in the Veteran’s Administration in Washington D.C; we speculate his health failed and he was in the VA Hospital. She mentioned in some notation somewhere about going out to see Sherman; perhaps the divorce was to allow her to be free to improve her fortunes.

I am not organizing this well, but at least I will get it out now – maybe I’ll smooth it out later.

When Sara and Sherman were married, she handed out large pictures of herself; Sherman thought it funny and handed out little pictures of himself. Today, in a box, I found a set. (I don’t know how I know this, but I do; I suppose it is one of those little pitchers have big ears things.)

And, a couple of days ago, I came across this: **

He died two days after Christmas. Twenty-one years later, I would be celebrating my first Christmas. A few months later, Sara would come to Grandma’s with her second husband, who she called L.D., and she took a lot of pictures of me that summer I turned one. We had homemade ice cream on my first birthday and apparently some rock salt got in the mixture. There must have been some joke about it because for a good part of my life I would hear references to L’D. saying, “I guess I’ll have some more of that salty ice cream.”

Well, you’ll get to know Sherman and Sara as I go through her journals again. They had their picture taken in bathing suits in The Great Salt Lake by “the Kodak man” dontcha know. Perhaps that photo will turn up as well.

For right now, we’re going to step into the Foo Bar,  grab some Cokes and Diet Cokes and raise up a toast to Sherman Malcolm.

P.S. Woo raised her glass and said, “To Sherman, may the fish always find your hole in the ice.” We all stared at her.

** A picture of the funeral home found at this LINK.

I fell asleep during Mega Pythom vs. Gatoroid and missed the part where the two heroines were eaten by the creatures that championed. There are too many movies in this style. And, when I think about it, I never watched the King Kong and Godzilla movies. I have to take that back; my dad and I did take Quentin to Godzilla 1985 matinee in South Bend. Quentin sat on his lap. That was a good afternoon.

However, the movies that earned me my reputation include the one about a brain transplant – a beautiful model is mortally injured so her brain is put into the body of a plain looking woman who is in a brain dead coma; the one where the Chinese tunneled under the Pacific; a film with an aging Dana Andrews as a scientist who starts a crack in the earth by aiming a rocket downward on the the launch pad.

I must return to my roots and stop padding my resume with these my monster is bigger than your monster flicks.

I walked through the living room just a few moments ago and realized Der Bingle and Cameron were watching a movie on Syfy about mega piranhas and paused long enough to determine the movie was a real bang your head on the wall experience. Uttering panicked words about my reputation for watching bad movies of this ilk, I ran out to settle in opposite the smaller TV, which is not a flat-screened HD and so things don’t look so in your face.

Der Bingle’s voice followed me, “Mega Python vs. Gatoroid” is coming on next.

So I am getting ready during commercials of the mega piranha movie. I have a nice, cold glass of peach iced tea. I’m turning off the lights so I can cuddle down in movie theater dark. I am ready. Supposedly there are two bimbo scientists who get in a cat fight. Holy Cow, I just saw the promo for the fight scene.

Its starting – last light going off.

I guess this picture sums up my personality.

I remember reading The Pioneer Woman a few years back, when I saw pictures of countryside and cattle and horse activities that were new to me. It was interesting  and it was obvious she wasn’t lacking for anything. It was a place of no worries. Oh, I figured that from time to time there would be mention of something on the downside happening, but that it would be dealt with in a “keep your head up; show your backbone; deal with it” pioneer mentality. You know, real things.

Who knew Shangra-La was in Oklahoma?

Marlboro Man’s maternal grandfather passed away and there was no mention of the man, his life, his death, the trip to the funeral. Nothing.  It was an event that occurred in the natural progression of life. I thought it would have been a connection that crosses all lifestyles and economic groups. I didn’t think it would shake the image of the good life in the heartland.

Somewhere along the line, the blog began to  generate those feelings one gets when a Christmas Letter comes in the mail from those families who have perfect lives and perfect kids. Surely sometime one of those kids got a “B-” or one of the family got a ticket for speeding. Did no one ever lock themselves out of a car . . . even it it only meant going inside to get the extra keys safely kept in a jar?

I get a kick out of the blogs that poke her with satire. Well, that’s one vote for Pie Near Woman. (Rechelle Unplugged for those not in the know.)

It wasn’t my fault that I didn’t get on this site yesterday and post this photo of my grandmother and several other grandmothers from Kingman, Indiana. No, my mind and fingers were kidnapped by a computer game – one about finding a lot of clues to get to the bottom of what happened at Ravenhearst in 1895 when Emma and her twin daughters went missing. For those of you not familiar with such games, they involve traipsing around trying to find out what you need to know and then getting that done.

For instance, let’s say it slowly dawns on you that a certain drawer has to be shut halfway to allow the secret passage door to open, only the drawer is stuck all the way open.. Nothing in your inventory will cause it to move – not a hammer, not a magic potion, not a screwdriver, not rope. Then, after you are just ready to give up and do something useful in real life, you think, “Oh, let me go into the game’s bathroom and see if it will let me pick up a piece of soap?” So you soap the sides of the drawer and it closes halfway and,. voila, you open the secret passage and  . . .

For some people this activity is like balm on the brain – for others, it is total nonsense.  I am in the first group, dontcha know.

But, now for the picture. It occurred to me that often the back of a saved newspaper article can be interesting as well, so I am showing both.

Net Grismore is a typo; it should be Nell Grismore.

And now here is the reverse side, showing that this picture was published in 1966 – according to the ad about the fair.

This picture has been put through the editing process to smudge over some creases. I found it in a plastic insert in my dad’s wallet. I think he carried it for a long, long time. Lana is nine months younger than I, but look, she is taller and her legs already leaner. Here’s a factoid: She was in the Miss Ball State Pageant when she was a freshman. I wasn’t because I went to IU . . . and  because maybe I was shorter with toddler legs. See, those are two good reasons.

My Aunt Geraldine had a reputation for being dominant and domineering and bossy and with a hot temper to boot. A couple of my cousins called her “The Commander”. She was my father’s oldest sister. As I have been reaching into boxes and bags and letters come out to a young soldier overseas, I have noticed that they are often signed “Love, Geraldine”.  And this birthday card? She made certain to get it mailed a whole month before my dad’s birthday on November 12th. I guess there was a softer side to her . . .

Of course, it is very possible that I might not have found these letters because at some point my dad and his sisters were going through a lot of old stuff and Geraldine lit a fire in a barrel out back.  As I understand it, one entire afternoon Aunt Geraldine was tossing things in the ‘to burn’ pile and my dad was pulling them out.

(I think Bill Alexander must be the brother of Al Alexander, who was married to my Aunt Evelyn. )