Passing It On

Too many irons in the fire or just stringing around?

One of the things I like best about the Internet is its capacity to surprise and entertain. You just never know what the next click will unveil.

Many of those entertaining surprises circulate widely through cyberspace via e-mail or myriad forms of social media. That’s how I stumbled across an e-mail titled “A Lick & A Promise” from a cousin, Bob Cody.

The female author (unknown to me) related the story of how a young clerk didn’t understand what she meant when she used the phrase “the bottom fell out” to explain a sudden downpour. “Then I started thinking of other things that I say all the time, which these young folks might not know anything about,” the author wrote.

She offered the following examples:

• Barking at a knot (meaning that your efforts were as useless as a dog barking at a knot.)
• Bee in your bonnet (to have an idea that won't let loose )
• Between hay and grass (not a child or an adult)
• Calaboose or hoosegow (a jail)
• Catawampus (something that sits crooked such as a piece of furniture sitting at an angle)
• Feather in your cap (to accomplish a goal. This came from years ago in wartime when warriors might receive a feather they would put in their cap for defeating an enemy)  
• Kit and caboodle (the whole thing)  
• A lick and a promise (I'm in a hurry so I am going  to just  give it a lick with  the mop and  promise to come back and do the job right later)
• Pretty is as pretty does  (your actions are more important than your looks)
• Red up  (clean the house)
• Sparking  (courting)
• Stringing around, gallivanting around, or piddling  (not doing anything of value)
• You ain't the only duck in the pond (it's not all about you)

Do any of these sound familiar?

Writing prompt for the day: What phrases do you use that you learned from your family elders?

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Uh, Dad, are you sure this is supposed to taste like this?

For many of us, kitchens are wondrous places, full of aromatic memories. Fresh bread right out of the oven, cinnamon rolls cooling in the pan, beef stew bubbling in a cast iron pot.

Coming up with those memories is easy. It’s the darker underbelly of the cooking experience that is sometimes missing from our family histories.

I offer as Exhibit A my dinner experience of last evening. I love to cook and like to think I do a pretty good job, most of the time. My wife is every bit as good a cook as I am but over the years I’ve turned into something of a “kitchen hog,” a trait she indulges.

For dinner last night, I made pizza, something of a house specialty. My whole wheat crust with relatively light marinara sauce is healthier and just as tasty as those found in most pizza places but I decided to take a bold step in a new direction last night.

I always make two pizzas, allowing us to freeze one for later. My first pizza was your basic vegetarian offering – mushrooms, ripe olives, green & red bell pepper, provolone & mozzarella cheeses. My second pizza consisted of olive oil sprayed on a half-baked crust, topped with a thin layer of pesto, sliced tomato and cheeses.

I thought it might taste a bit like a summer favorite, the margharita, but it tasted more like cheese-topped mud. A dud for sure.

As kitchen mistakes go, this one wasn’t so bad. Certainly not as bad as the time(s) we set off smoke alarms making blackened fish in a white-hot cast iron skillet or the time a skillet of grease caught fire on the stove.

The lesson here is to push your memory beyond the obvious. Sometimes the stories that easily pop to mind aren’t the most interesting ones.

Writing prompt for the day: What kitchen disaster stories do you remember?

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Flickr photo of Larry Lehmer and Rose Hayes fromlwlehmer.

Busted! Do you know the lawbreakers in your family tree?

When I was in junior high, I came down with a severe case of, shall we say, sticky fingers.

As I understand it, this was a common malady, though I don’t recall any of my friends being afflicted with it. I don’t remember the circumstances surrounding my first heist, but I certainly remember those of my last.

I started out with the small stuff – little green and red plastic bingo markers that probably sold for a dime a bag at Kresge’s or Woolworth’s. I moved up in short order to index cards, the easily concealable 3 x 5 inch variety. You might wonder why would a 12-year-old boy want a stash of bingo markers and index cards? Good question. I have no answer. It apparently was more for the thrill than the stuff.

My undoing came when I wandered into a Safeway store with a couple of friends on our way home after school. Expanding my repertoire to include candy bars was an unwise decision. I was nabbed at the door while my innocent friends slipped away undeterred.

The short lecture I received in the manager’s office was powerfully effective. I was scared straight. I caught up with my friends who asked, “What was that all about?” I muttered something about being a witness to a shoplifting. Just doing my civic duty. I doubt that they bought it.

Truth is, most of us have either been lawbreakers ourselves or have relatives who were. Think of buying or using alcohol or cigarettes illegally, using a fake ID to do something otherwise prohibited, speeding or fudging on taxes.

Some of us have more notable lawbreakers in our family’s past. In recent years I have heard stories of a great grandparent who may have served time for murder. There may be others who have committed illegal acts that I am unaware of.

What about your family?

Writing prompt for the day: How do you handle difficult subjects in your family history? Are you asking the right questions?

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Flickr photo courtesy of stevechasmar.

‘Old Home Day’ gives a colorful peek into U.S. rural roots

As a writer, I’m partial to books. Oh, I dink around in cyberspace, contributing my fair share of binarian musings and pixels, but I strongly believe that the printed word will transcend whatever electronic challenges may pop up in the foreseeable future.

As you might guess, my home is full of books. Overflowing would be too strong a word, but my wife and I are making a conscientious attempt at winnowing our typographical treasures. Thus, it’s something of a setback whenever a new book is added to the collection. Sometimes, though, I just can’t help myself.

Our local library is following a similar path as that taken by my wife and I; they are continuously purging their holdings. Their castoffs are often my temptations, especially since almost all of them are cut loose for a measly 25 cents. This week I succumbed, plunking down a quarter for “Old Home Day” by Donald Hall.

“Old Home Day” is a children’s book and the colorful watercolor illustrations by Emily Arnold McCully sold me as much as the delightful, to-the-point text by poet Hall. There’s something of a disclaimer to the 1996 book, noting that it is “the story of the growth of a fictional New Hampshire village from prehistory to the bicentennial celebration of its founding.”

Despite the fiction part, “Old Home Day” could be the story of thousands of communities across the United States: Carved by glaciers, lush forests and grasslands taking root, Native Americans arriving, followed by trappers and inevitable conflicts. Farmers staking their claims with commerce right behind, bringing with it roads and railroads that slice through the wilderness. Rapid growth and then an inexplicable exodus to the growing cities.

But the book sounds an optimistic note, playing off the real Old Home Week proclaimed by New Hampshire Governor Frank Rollins in 1899. Rollins’ call for people to reconnect with their roots had an impact well beyond New Hampshire, though it’s hard to tell how many people were actually lured back to their rural origins because of Rollins’ action.

Well-orchestrated family history projects are the literary equivalent of Old Home Week, allowing descendants a glimpse into their own family’s roots through the stories of their ancestors.

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Sign of the times: Obituaries rotating with pizza, tire ads

Think billboards are dead? If so, you’re half-right.

Here in central Iowa, it’s possible for your loved ones to see your name up in lights one last time after you’re gone. The Iles Funeral Homes of Des Moines and Clear Channel Outdoor have teamed up to offer obituaries on at least five electronic billboards in the metro area.

For about 8 seconds, service details with the dead person's name and picture appear in rotation with other ads. According to Jessica Koth of the National Funeral Directors Association in Brookfield, Wis., the electronic billboards are a first.

While the debate continues over the distractive features of electronic billboards in general, Marilyn Johnson, author of "The Dead Beat," a 2006 book about obituaries told the Des Moines Register that billboard obituaries "invite a lot of bad taste."

Besides the poor resolution of old family photos, Johnson said: "It could cause accidents, right? Wouldn't you like drive into a telephone pole if you saw your neighbor up there and didn't know? ... What are you going to do, pull off and mourn?"

Tim Jameson of Clear Channel notes in the Register article that a call on a cell phone can be as big a distraction.

"If you think about it, the family living room is not the family living room," Jameson told Register reporter Gunnar Olson. "The living room is the minivan."

Writing prompt of the day: Have you thought about how your own death should be announced? Do your relatives know of your wishes?

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Flickr photo of billboard courtesy of popofatticus.