Author: GrannyDalgas

Our work on the 7th Street house in Corvallis is back on again. While my family and friends in North Central Washington are experiencing the deepest snow of decades, we are in the misty fog of the Willamette Valley working on Pa’s grandmother’s old home. Grandma Dick was a warm, happy person who would be so pleased to see her grandson’s skills and talents improving and restoring her home. Surely she is smiling somewhere. Making thrifty improvements to this approximately hundred year old home takes patience, imagination, ingenuity, luck and resilience.

Which reminds me somehow of the movie we watched the other night. Okay, our project isn’t revolutionary , as is the building of a nuclear fusion device, but both have in common the need for time. This movie is excellent and inspiring.

LET THERE BE LIGHT Official Trailer from EyeSteelFilm on Vimeo.

Anyway, the light fixture in the dining room had been replaced with a modern pendant that we didn’t care for. The old fashioned built in cabinets and classic windows called for something more elegant. A chandelier!

The last time we were here we took a romantic drive to find and photograph covered bridges near Eugene, and to shop for a bathtub. We found a darling and reasonably priced chandelier at a sweet antique shop. We protected it from the weather in a black plastic bag as we drove back from Eugene. A few days later , we made a major trip to the landfill with debris and trash – some of it in bags, some loose. We never found the chandelier again. Haste made waste that day, as we disappointedly realized we had inadvertently tossed it with other junk .

Months later, our design idea came back to us when we looked in a give away pile in a neighbor’s driveway . This nearby bin often has items for sale or items for free. There was a fine looking brass toned chandelier! Not to say we deserved to have another chance, but there it was! Pa brought it home and Voila! It is now a lovely addition to this charming little home. Many thanks, muchas gracias , merci beaucoup universe for your many many blessings. May we find ways to reciprocate, and may we be humble.

This trait of finding treasure in trash reminds me of this old video from a few years back when Entiat had a day a year for metal recycling. I really looked forward to those events.

Loose Park was five or six blocks from our home at 403 W. 59th Street in Kansas City, Mo. A walking path wound its way around the lagoon, the tennis courts, the swimming pool and eventually to the well tended rose garden with a sparkling fountain at its heart. The park was a calm and charmed refuge from our messy home life.

On one hot summer day, my sisters Dolly and Ruth Louise and I took our first long distance bike ride to Loose Park by ourselves . Dolly and Ruth Louise were the lucky riders of sturdy and brisk bicycles with names like Cockney, and Rattletrap that I surely envied. Being the fourth child and the third girl in our sibling constellation of five , at my age of 7 or 8 , a bicycle had not yet entered my life. The freedom of fluid speed, wind in one’s hair came later, but on that humid morning my mode of transport was an outgrown tricycle. No matter, I felt lucky to be included in my older sisters’ escapade.

As we made our way up the hill, I realized my dilemma . My progress lagged behind my sisters, my knees were banging against the handlebars, and my energy was flagging. I was known as a crybaby, ( and in all honesty I cried the whole way ) and a weakling ( which I was ) , but on that day my ambition ( I had to! ) to keep up eclipsed my ó frustration. I can’t remember the arrival at the park, but it must have been with a feeling of relief , knowing the way back was all downhill.

The whole way home , I cried , and my knees were shaky, bruised and red and my body felt wobbly, but pride was intact (ha!) . Perhaps my future of someday crossing long distances on a bicycle had been sealed. Wonders never cease.

Today, in honor of Mama’s birthday, I looked through a folder I have of notes she wrote to herself, some barely legible. Amongst those I find many that seem to be an encouragement to herself to be a better, kinder, more accomplished person than the wonder she already was. I don’t know that she ever truly saw her own light. There is also a copy of her resume that she submitted to the director of the Kansas City Social Health Society in September , 1966. She must have needed a change from the job she was currently holding as a recreation director at the Don Bosco Community Center. We were kids of the same ages as those she worked with. The last photo in this IMovie is of her softball team. I look back on this time we had with Mama, and am struck with how very fortunate we were to be the children of a woman so passionately in love with life. Happy Birthday Mama!

In the process of remodeling the bathroom here at 429 NW 7th Street in Corvallis, Pa first replaced the major components of the plumbing, vastly improving the system. We have a rough timeline to return home to Entiat, and we were well on the way to having a completed bathroom when he began putting the wains coat wall covering on. He already had intentions to level the house next time we come down, but it was apparent the paneling would not fit well until that was accomplished. And SO, in a day and a half he tore down the decommissioned chimney in the attic and jacked the house up an inch and a half or more. He was hoping for 2 inches, but the jacks in the basement started to punch through the concrete floor. Just as the major part of the intense pounding, creaking of wood and crackling of plaster happened, I was on my daily zoom call with the grandkids. The distraction of their sweet untroubled faces soothed my nerves , and I hoped they didn’t worry hearing such thunder coming from my side of the zoom screen. They might have enjoyed seeing the bricks flying out of the attic window ( there goes Pa again! ) as the chimney came down, but I sought comfort in listening to the book “ Braiding Sweetgrass”, by Robin Wall Kimmerer, while discovering and working on a good use for the bricks – I now have edging for my front yard garden. I am finding solace and insight as Ms Kimmerer shares of the importance of reciprocity and gratitude in all of our actions. As a botanist, a poet, and a member of the Citizen Patowatomi Nation, she combines her heritage with scientific and environmental passions. I hope that our renovations and efforts to honor the places we care for let the plants, the people and the beings all around us, know we are so thankful. The gifts of nature are endless.

It’s been weeks now, since my brother died . I am not sure how the world shifted or how we left this plane of existence since his departure, but life has changed for those of us who knew him and loved him. Today is Jimmy’s birthday, and I expect to be thinking of him throughout much of the day. His life deserves so much more than I am able to share – the scope and effect of his existence and his thinking transcends my writing ability,

He was a handsome jolly baby, entering the world on May 5, 1946 . My dad told the story of the OB doctor emerging from the delivery room, with the statement “It’s a boy. That’ll be a hundred dollars.” Daddy later regretted not saving the cancelled check, a souvenir of the best $100 he ever spent.

The many photos taken of Jimmy with each member of our extended family show just how much they adored him. He was loved beyond measure. His generosity of spirit, and his magnificent career was launched in those early days. 

Remembering childhood with my siblings is a most cherished pastime, as we bring to life episodes that only we know. Sitting at the kitchen table with Jimmy one day last month , I reminded him of “fishy music” he used to play on the piano as we younger siblings “swam” and danced in the living room in our imaginary ocean – calmly when his notes were soft and gentle, frantically when the deep tones rang out the approach of sea monsters. The memory brought a smile to his face in a time when smiles were the best medicine of all. 

Jimmy would have been 75 today, 10 years older than me. That our brother spent many sweet times like this that we can all recount speaks of love. I am more lately considering the fragility of existence – and what is of enduring value. If I understand the premise in his book “Biocosm” , it is that intelligence is the force behind life here and throughout the universe. The beauty of the cosmos speaks to me of love, and good humor, which are in abundance in all my thoughts of Jimmy.