Parents, share with your children

I was studying Scripture readings for Sunday and watching CNN while waiting for the oil to be changed in my minivan last week.

There was an elderly man and woman in the service lounge with me. Slowly a conversation grew around the terrible events that were being covered in San Bernadino, California by a multitude of experts on terrorism, Middle Eastern affairs, firearms and homegrown extremists.

The elderly lady said that this news of mass shootings now hits about once every two weeks.

"They're breeding each other, inspiring each other," I opined.

The skinny, auburn-haired woman and the older, rotund man with half moon eyes that disappeared in his smile began to talk about how the world has changed. They spoke of where and how they were raised, she on a farm in the Midwest and he on a farm in Appalachia without running water or electricity for a good portion of his childhood. He mentioned how he told his grandchildren that as a boy his family didn't have television, and they asked him, "What did you do, Grandpa?" He began to shrug...

"We chased each other on our bicycles," said the woman with conviction, finishing his story, adding that her family also didn't have television for a lot of the time.

"Kids need those stories," I acknowledged. "It's great that you share them with your grandchildren."

I told them how I grew up in the boonies of Tennessee and how my children don't know anything similar to what I experienced as a child. They both nodded.

"We ate meals together every night," said the gentleman then. "That's when we talked about things like, 'Do we buy new carpet for the house or take a vacation?' And it was almost always the vacation," he added, laughing.

The gentlewoman nodded her head. "We came home every night to a hot supper. Kids nowadays are always rushing."

They talked about their children's families. The gentleman said that if his son's family sits down to a meal together once a week, it's a miracle. When he visits his son, he almost has to make an appointment to see the whole of his son's family at one time.

The gentlewoman nodded. It was similar in her own children's lives.

I - probably a little overzealous - shared my view that kids need that interaction time within the family in order to learn how to be people. They can't learn that well from YouTube, their phones or any other screen (except for Sesame Street, perhaps).

After that they began to talk about prayer in schools and the Pledge of Allegiance and solid moral instruction and etiquette in the workplace, and I just listened intently to two people who probably had more than a quarter of a century on me.

Yes, the topics were similar to what every older generation bemoans in the new, but they were right about family. Humans need family. They need familial love and attention, dinner table conversations, and chasing friends on bicycles. We were not made for our phones or any other alluring screen. That interaction will only ever go so far, and it does very little, I believe, to develop our emotional quotient. We need the human touch, so to speak.

Listening to my elders talk was a pleasure. I enjoyed their tales. It helped me forget the big, scary, inhuman world for a bit.

Stories can do that.

Just recently at a Thanksgiving after Thanksgiving dinner at my friend Geraldine's house, our friend Kim shared scenes from her childhood in Colorado, tales I had never heard of times that she still considers some of the most fun in her life: growing up under the mountains in a small apartment, sledding often, going without some things but not missing them one bit because of the adventures she relished as a youngster in that beautiful part of the country.

I joked at my friend's Thanksgiving dinner that my kids know all my stories, that I tell them over and over. If I start to talk about our dog Reuben and his good but annoying friend Mandy, they respond easily with, "Oh, yeah! Mandy was always bugging Reuben!", and they even know the color of their fur.

For my part I still remember many of my dad's stories from his dangerous, exhausting days of working on the power lines in the West, and the laughter and gasps they produced in us children. I can tell you the names of his powerline buddies. And I cherish the memories shared of how, when and where Mom and Dad courted as teenagers.

And this is part of what I think those two lovely people were saying in that service lounge while we waited for things to be fixed in the world. Family dinners at the table and slower times with mostly each other's company for amusement generated and gave room for sharing stories, stories that lightened the mood, that told of hardship and recovery, that comforted, that warned, that guided and enlightened, that communicated values.

That spread joy.

Stories are important. Not as vital as family, but they are our heritage, something precious we have to pass on. Yes, I know I'm biased, but tell stories to your children. Tell them to your friends. To the people in the car service lounge if it's not too awkward. Tell them to the world! No one else can share the memories you have. And you can only share them if you slow down and unplug over a meal or even something as simple as a cup of cocoa.

Especially at this time of year, I hope we don't forget that one of the best things we can give to our children and each other is these unique stories.

And may we ever find new opportunities to weave each other into new and pleasant ones.

A Fall Tradition

I have not written lately, but I have excuses. This week I was making eucalyptus wreaths and baskets with my children. The wreaths are a yearly tradition. We usually make our first one in October.

The baskets I first dreamed of this year. Yes, neither wreath nor basket is perfect. They are not classically beautiful. They're, shall we say, interesting. Nevertheless, when I completed that first basket above, I giggled like a little girl as I bragged to my husband, "Can you believe I made a basket? A basket! And I almost gave up so many times!"

That is so very true. It cramped my fingers, stained their tips sage green, and strained my upper arm muscles as I attempted to jam supple, slender branches through the stacked wreaths to weave them. The lattice work on the bottom was pitiful, not properly patterned at all, but I believe it will hold.

And then we made another one today, my children and I. We sat on a picnic blanket between the two huge Eucalyptus trees in the front yard, and we trimmed young, green branches from the tree, stripped their leaves gently, and then rolled them into several small wreaths. After that concentrated effort of an hour or so, most of my children left the communal quilt to seek the relaxation of television indoors. Analisa and I stayed. She collected Bermuda hay for a witch's broom she had designed from a sturdy, gnarled branch. I broke the poor fingers of our generous Eucalyptus again and again as I weaved and fumed. Yet I prevailed. Our completed, collaborative basket is the one on the left. Not too bad, if I do say so myself.

Little House Virtues, and On the Banks of Watson Lake

 

 

Every so often I am reminded of what I knew daily as a child, and I feel sorry for my kids, poor little city kids. I regret that they don't experience the freedom of growing up in the country. True, they don't know what they're missing, but I do: the alluring sights, smells and sounds of abundant nature just outside your door; the ever-changing adventure of creek, field and forest; and the whole brave world of trouble country kids can get into that seems far more wild and wholesome than what can be found in the city.

 

I miss the country badly at times...

 

Can you tell I'm reading the Little House series again to my daughter Ana? In its chapters she senses she's missing out on something grand, a strange freedom, and we mull this over together; my daughter is a natural-born country girl, like me.

 

Right now we are reading On the Banks of Plum Creek, and more than the crazy, beautiful tales of a truly rural life told in the simple but eerily elegant prose of Laura Ingalls Wilder, I am enjoying all the nuggets of wisdom woven yet again into her tales of prairie life. Here are a few excerpts I have admired this time:

 

"Well," he said at last. "I hardly know what to do, Laura. You see, I trusted you. It is hard to know what to do with a person you can't trust. But do you know what people have to do to anyone they can't trust?

 

"Wh-at?" Laura quavered.

 

"They have to watch him," said Pa.

 

And, as true for adults as it is for children, this from Ma Ingalls:

 

"Once you begin being naughty, it is easier to go on and on, and sooner or later something dreadful happens."

 

And this beautifully sums up the spirit of Christmas:

 

And then Ma told them something else about Santa Claus. He was everywhere, and besides that, he was all the time.

 

Whenever anyone was unselfish that was Santa Claus.

 

Every child should read these tales, I think, to discover a world so different but so vibrant without technological trappings.

 

 

*********************************

 

 

My man has been a city guy all his life, so what do I do to drag him into nature?

Every little bit I make a request to drive into the country on a long weekend or for a holiday...my birthday, say. I give him fair warning of my desire for fresh air, and, usually, he accommodates.

 

This last time we went to Watson Lake near Prescott, Arizona. It has strange granite dells crowded on it shores.

  

 

We stopped at a playground on the way that had a play fire truck with the names of the 19 firefighters who lost their lives in the Yarnell Hill fire on June 30th, 2013. I thought that was a beautiful idea for a memorial - many of those men were dads - though my little ones didn't understand what it meant or who it commemorated.

 

Then we parked above the lake and hiked down to take our lunch on a big rock in the blustery wind. We saw some people propelling down a precipice nearby, and I remarked, "I'm not the adventure sport sort, but that's one thing I would do gladly: rock climbing."

 

Shoot! I was bound to eat those words.

 

My kids were rock climbing, alright. They were descending to the water to stare in wonder at all the tadpoles, tiny fish and crawdads. It's times like these when they show their city greenness. Yet we all gawked at the beautiful and iridescent blue dragonflies of various sizes that whizzed through the air above our heads and danced over the water at our feet. My son Berto tried to catch a fish in his palms and would have done it, too, if he had gotten past the slippery skin against his fingers. My daughter Ana gently scooped up tadpoles, and then set them free. All my children leapt across boulders and crossed narrow log bridges on their exploration.

And I, that lady who claimed she would scale rocks for pleasure - big rocks, and uphill all the way! - paused in trepidation at a two-foot gap between some slanted granite behemoths. The water flowing between was three inches deep at least. My husband and long-legged oldest children, Berto and Ana, jumped across effortlessly, but every time I tensed for the leap, I lost my nerve. I could just see my knees and fingertips scraping down the scaly surface of the rock before I sprained my ankle in the perilous, crawdad-infested shallows at the bottom.

 

Berto said, "Look, Mom. It's easy. You just jump."

 

Just jump. Now!" said Matthew again and again, but he waited in vain, because I was a yellow-bellied chicken.

 

When I finally spread my legs and sprang, prepared to die in my dare-devil ways, you'd assume the fear was conquered, but I couldn't go back.

 

"It's easier back," said Matthew. "The rock slants down this way."

 

No difference. The mental hurdles stalled me. If I could ever control my unbridled imagination, I would be darn near a superhero.

 

Matthew gave up on me, and it took pressure off. A few minutes later, I jumped back.

 

But to save face, I've decided that every time I tell that story I'm going to increase the length between those boulders and the depth of the water by several feet. Pretty soon I will have jumped 20 feet between the cliffs of insanity over a churning abyss.

 

On our way back up to the parking lot, following white dots painted on rock to mark the way for wayward hikers, we saw a toad. I can't remember when I last saw an amphibian; I kid you not. He was a tiny little guy and the color of the dells, a perfect fit in his environment.

Later, we drove to a dock and took a walk up a path. Though we saw masses of wildflowers and crowds of butterflies, we lost the sense of being in the country as the parking lot filled with canoe-laden pickup trucks, and the meandering path wound below a highway. But we did get to see some geese. I thought the gaggle was going to gang up on us and steal our remaining food. They followed us so closely.

But they just tried to intimidate us with their glassy stares and noisy honks.

It was a simple, short afternoon in the country, not nearly as solitary or unpredictable as the Minnesota prairie, but it was memorable and fed our appetite for more wild adventures. Who knows? I might even...someday, if the kids are lucky...convince my man to take us camping.

Now, wouldn't that be a hoot.

Just don't ask me to jump any big rocks on the way to the campsite.

A Day in the Life of Oahu: Makapu'u Point

I'm afraid I've sounded ungrateful. Okay, yes, I can just see a few of you nodding your heads...

When I really, truly realized that our family of six was going to have the fantastic privilege of going to Hawaii all together, I was stunned at our good fortune. I was deeply grateful to my in-laws for paying for their grandchildren's plane tickets. I was amazed that my kids, not of a wealthy family, would have the honor of saying, "We went to Hawaii on summer vacation!" I was so glad my brother-in-law and sister-in-law had invited us to their exotic nuptials.

I just forgot there would be traffic in Hawaii - especially on heavily populated Oahu. I forgot there would be large cities and all the mess and disarray that crowds of human beings living in proximity entail. I didn't fully understand, I guess, that all of Hawaii wasn't a strand of lonely, wild Polynesian islands. I didn't contemplate the fact that less than grand hotel suites exist everywhere - especially not at those prices!

But do you think I lost my sense of good fortune? Well, okay, maybe that first afternoon....but it quickly returned, I assure you.

It returned when we drove out of Waikiki that very next day. I said to my husband, "Wow, it feels like we can finally breath - just being out of the city."

And my man, a city man all his life, answered, "I know, right?"

Even he had felt suffocated by the traffic and the tall buildings of greater Honolulu.

We arrived at Diamond Head and hunted for parking. (Trust me, you must get there by 7 or 8 in the morning if you hope to find any.) My husband began to drive into a large tunnel cutting through the rim of that volcanic crater to more parking on the other side when we were startled by a blaring, insistent horn. It felt as if we were in a movie, our car rattling down railway tracks toward a train that was guaranteed to crush us in the gloom, but it wasn't a train; it was a tour bus. I'm amazed my husband didn't cuss, locked in its narrow path...or maybe he did, and my mind had blocked out everything but the gaudy, brightly-hued colossal that hadn't slowed down one bit. Matthew hit the gas and reversed in such a way it rivaled any pretty boy maneuvers in some spy thriller. Tour buses in Oahu can be black-hearted villains beneath all that bright paint. When we had to enter the tunnel once more, because all parking was full, Matthew fled faster than the 15mph speed limit, getting through that tunnel in lightning speed to avoid any more behemoths filled with fellow tourists.

But I digress. We joined up with Matthew's parents and brother Robert after parking in a community college lot. We risked the tunnel on foot and entered the crater for our hike. Diamond Head was an experience - at times a scary one as my four-year-old walked too close to the path's plummeting edge or climbed winding stairs with but one high rail to contain a fall - but an experience. The sets of steep stairs will test the integrity of shins and knees; the dark tunnels will test your love of daylight; the crowds in cramped spaces will test your love of  fellow man; but the vistas will reinforce your love of nature. And the number of people hiking in dresses and flimsy sandals with no drinking water will confound you.

Our day was not nearly done. After eating a fortifying lunch at McDonald's, we drove to Makapu'u Point. I was hoping for more hiking, but the lookout itself was so beautiful, we were satisfied. And we'd left the crowds behind.

This was the Hawaii we had envisioned, and the color of the water was all that we'd heard it was from people who had actually vacationed on beautiful islands before.

We wanted a dip in that water, just to tickle our toes. Obviously, we weren't so spellbound that we forgot we weren't surfers, but we felt sure we could have a nice wade in the sea from that beach down below.

Matthew told the kids, and by default me, "Don't get wet above the knees - just to the knees, hear me? We didn't bring a change of clothes."

Unused as we were to the prospect of a beach day, we had neglected to bring swim suits, but that didn't impede our fun at all. As soon as that surf swirled about our ankles, we were lost in Neverland - eternal children, awestruck and giggling at our good fortune and our bravery. My father-in-law was holding my purse like a true gentleman. Grandma and Uncle Robert linked hands with Daniel, Ana, and Ella. I closed the link, and my girls and boy in turn jumped into the incoming water, squeezing the hands of their adults, and then the kids and I squealed as we pulled frantically back from the powerful surf and receding tide, dreading being pulled out toward the surfers who we must then rely on to save us. My wonderful mother-in-law reminisced about her childhood near Galveston and doing just this exercise of surf splashing all the time as a little girl. It seemed to go on forever, and we didn't notice at all that we were venturing farther and farther out, the water marks on our clothes advancing well above the knees.

When I finally found my feet on dry sand, Danny was playing in a little pool of ocean water in a broad dip in the sand. Some little boys there had boogey boards which they generously offered to share with Ella and Daniel. I forgot Matthew's edicts, and let the kids go full-belly, full-tilt into the little pool.

"Honeeey..."reproved Matthew. He had resisted the allure of the surf. Poor guy, he so often has to be the adult. I remember too well the temptations of childhood to restrain them as I ought.

It was time to clean up as best we could. We didn't even have towels. Daniel rode back to Waikiki in underwear, poor fella, and the rest of us sopped our seats and created a terrible sand apocalypse in our rented vehicle. I'm still surprised we haven't gotten a letter from the rental car company informing us that the van was irreversibly sand-ridden and salt-water smelly, and we must pay a hefty fine or buy the thing outright, paying for shipping cross-Pacific.

But we didn't, and I'll never forget that great, full day. We were thrilled to be in Hawaii.

 

 

A Post in Pictures: Diamond Head, O'ahu

Diamond Head towers over Honolulu - pic by Matthew

A writer writes - except when she just got home from two whirlwind trips to exotic locales like O'ahu, Hawaii and San Saba, Texas to be present at two very different and quite beautiful weddings. Tired and distracted by a stomach bug her kids no doubt picked up at the public pool, she's too busy running between the bathroom upon command and the laundry room to write a dreamy travel piece to make her friends green with envy. Still, she can try and post pictures with witty - no: informative - captions.

I have so many photos and so many experiences of which to write that I'm breaking up the posts by location as evident from the title of this post. Our whole family journeyed to Hawaii early this month, and we couldn't quite believe it was happening...until it did.

 

Our arrival on the island of O'ahu the afternoon of July 2nd smacks of a humor post to be published later (I'm hoping). By that evening, however, things had improved a good deal in spending time with extended family. The next day, on the advice of my well-traveled in-laws, we hiked to the summit of Diamond Head, an iconic volcanic crater once used for defensive purposes by the US military, towering near Honolulu. The hike is not an easy one. From the floor of the crater, you must climb through multiple switchbacks on the trail, up dozens of narrow, steep steps and through at least one long, dark tunnel. The views from the lookouts and seeing old military bunkers and equipment along the way are worth it. Our children did very well, but I would not recommend this hike with children younger than four. 

 

When we descended once more, the kids had shave ice, and we all rested in the volcano's lovely crater with its large trees, picnic tables and tall, waving grasses. The kids climbed the trees with large canopies and followed around brightly-crested birds - both extremely rare in our Phoenix environs. Then we gawked at what I thought to be, hampered by my poor eyesight, a cross between a freakishly large squirrel and a drab, furry lizard. It turned out to be a mongoose.

 

The view into the crater below the brave explorers.

 

Peaks on the rim

 

Diamond Head Lighthouse and its beautiful turquoise waters 

Mongoose: creature of lore

 

One more look back into the welcoming crater

A Post in Pictures: Something about a creek...

Sometimes you get to reclaim a little of your childhood thousands of miles from where you grew up.

In order to do so this past Sunday, Matthew had to drive our van down a dirt road that felt like a rollercoaster from the early 1900s with people regularly pitched off the wooden slats to their serious injury a few dozen feet below. (I stroked my van and apologized, and she sits in the driveway stewing still, caked with mud all over her rear end.)

Holly and Chip, our hiker friends - the cool ones - are very intrepid, but when we finally parked the van 11 miles and 35 minutes later off the road and peered over the edge of the parking allotment at our trail, Matthew and I felt a little squeamish. But if our kids and Holly's pug, Buster, were raring to go, then so were we!


Pic by Holly

The hike led down toward Sycamore Creek near the Verde River, and once we had navigated the sharp descent with our children, digesting the fact that it would surely be the devil's road on the way back up, we came quite quickly to the first swimming hole. There was a thin rope, looped at the end, dangling from a small branch over placid water.

"Hey, a rope swing!" someone said excitedly.

"We'll have to try it on the way out," said Chip.

Our hike had barely begun, so we ventured on until we came to another accessible part of the river, and the kids all dipped their hats in the water and tipped them back on their heads, letting the cool drip down their necks. Little white butterflies fluttered around us, and larger members of their family, more colorful, drew near. Brilliant blue dragonflies zipped past and played about the water. We found a huge watermelon vine trailing the ground; someone must have dropped their seeds, because watermelon is certainly not native. But the smell on that path through the woods was a native aroma. It was delicious, all exotic spice, probably from the creosote. I breathed deeply, wishing I could capture the fragrance to rub into some grilled meat next time we barbequed.

Both families left directions in the cars, so we were lucky to find our swimming hole at all. We were sure we had lost the creek after crossing it twice and losing all sound of running water. So Chip and my boy Berto decided to scout it out ahead while the rest of us turned back, dispirited. The guys came running and shouting for us to halt in our cowardly retreat. They'd found the place, and it was right below a beautiful red rock with caves and multiple crevices.

"I hope you aren't fooling us, Chip," I said as we followed them on the silent, dusty trail.

"It's right ahead."

And sure enough, we turned a corner, and there it was in its splendor, worth the heat and the sweat and the uncertainty.

Chip, our resident adventurer, decided that we needed to go out on a ledge to ideally enjoy our packed lunch. So we clambered up behind him, helping our six children along, the remaining adults crawling quickly over a narrow lip of the rock after them. There we settled on a red rock precipice for  our meal, the adults and older kids hung their legs above the water and created a human fence to prevent the little ones from falling. Matthew dropped a carrot in the pool below, and presently Berto cried, "Look, a lobster!" It was a crawdad. He had grabbed the veggie and was ambling along the rocks with his prize.

It was all shade at first in our precarious dining space, but presently the sun broke above us. It was time for a swim.

There's a country song called Something About a Truck from Kip Moore with this verse that goes:

Something about a creek around 2 am
After a few of those beers, you wanna dive right in
You don't need no clothes, just hang em on a limb!
Something about a creek around 2 am

I hear that verse when Matthew is playing his country music, and I say to him, "That man has never been in a creek at 2 am. At 2 pm it's cold! If you wanted to go skinny dippin in a creek at 2 am, I'd say, 'You first!' and push you right in." Still, he's the only one who could persuade me, but it would definitely take a couple craft beers. (I'm selective but a light weight.)

And how right I am. We started wading out in the water, and I felt like my body was going to seize up. Meanwhile Chip was trying to catch crawdads by letting them clamp down on his finger. Holly submerged quickly and wisely kept most of her body under. Then Chip swam all the way across the pool to explore a cave. Matthew didn't want to swim; his lean body has no fat to protect him against the chill. I was dying for a swim; it'd been so long. After a short breast stroke, however, my hollers of misery were echoing off the red rock. Matthew snapped a picture after my dip:

Chip heard me shrieking from the cave and asked what was wrong. "Nothing...she's just cold!" Holly called to him.

Something about a creek around 2 am, my foot...though maybe with a proper bathing suit or no clothes it's better. My plastered and dripping jean shorts and T-shirt weren't helping.

Eventually, I found my courage, and getting down in the cold, I stayed down. I had a good swim while Holly, a great and once competitive swimmer, volunteered to water taxi the kids on her back to the cave, and Matthew stood still and alone in a little shaded bay of his own and lured fish with bits of carrot...until they got wise to him.

As we swam bits of white fluff from the cottonwood trees drifted continually by on the breeze, dragonflies lined up on a floating twig, small fish approached our toes and birds skimmed the water with their beaks to catch lunch.

It was a beautiful spot, in hues of blue and green and red, and the jolting drive and hot hike were nothing to the adventure of a good swimming hole, but eventually it was time to face the road again.

On the hike out we passed groups of young people in bikinis and swimming trunks, the young men hauling coolers of beer between them, looking sure of a good time (something about a creek...).

Just as we were getting dry, we jumped back in to play on the rope swing at the first swimming hole. We got muddy and wet, and our toes sank into the sediment on the bottom, sending big clouds of dirt spreading across the water. But I have a soft spot for rope swings, and so does Chip, apparently. I reminisced about the thick barge rope over our creek in Tennessee, how we could sit in its large loop. He talked about childhood summers in Pennsylvania, canoe trips and expeditions to find the best rope swing each year.

Memories such as those and these must be made. You have to grab adventure by the horns, no matter how tiresome it is to pack lunches and water, lather four kids with sunscreen, and see the mess of a van you rode home on. My city kids, so thrilled to explore caves and watch crawdads and fling themselves into water from a rope swing, need a lot more time in the God-given country. And where better than Arizona?

Gone Fishing

Saturday was free fishing day at all the urban lakes, so I persuaded my man to take our kids angling.

While her big brother, sister, Mama and Papa fished in turns,  Ella held a worm she named Batman in her hands. He stretched himself, compacted and wriggled and almost fell out of her hands. She asked me if I wanted to hold him, but I declined, petting his smooth body with one finger.

A fish jumped out of the water, and she cried, "I'm glad that fish didn't jump out and eat Batman!"

The fishing was tough. We didn't catch a thing except memories, though we got to the park early after picking up the bait.

Matthew asked Daniel and Ella if they wanted to hold the bait, and then he dropped them gently into their hands. Daniel dumped the squirming creatures immediately. Batman was one of the fattest worms Ella got to hold, and she held him and powdered him with moist earth until our patience with the catfish had worn out.

"Can I keep him?" she asked as we packed up.

"No," I said gently.

"We are not keeping a worm as a pet," said Papa less gently.

We released him in the flower pot at home against my better judgment. It didn't turn out so well for Batman and his friends in this blasted heat. They're fertilizer now. Ella doesn't know.

_

I bet my brother Nate wouldn't go fishing with me again. For the memories.

Once we were at a pond or lake just outside Clarksville, Tennessee, and Natie laid his pole out on the ground to straighten his line and adjust the bait on his hook. My parents had told me several times to be alert, but I came by and tripped over his line, sinking the hook into his finger. His shout of pain brought my dad running. Nate got the barb out quickly, but it didn't save me from a well deserved rebuke for my chronic clumsiness.

Years later we were at one of many lakes near our campsite at my grandfather's gold claim in Idaho. Nate was baiting my line and advising me on technique. Be patient. Reel in slowly. If you feel a bite, don't jerk the line; tug gently so you don't sink the hook too deeply.

But I over do everything, so when I felt a bite I jerked my pole as if the ground had suddenly pitched beneath me, calling for Natie to come as I reeled it in. The fish was a skinny, short thing flapping about. Nate dug for that hook valiantly, but I had snagged it good.

"Hillary, I told you not to jerk on the line!"

I babbled apologies, feeling terrible for the little fish. Finally he gave up, found a fist-sized rock.

"Turn around," he told me. "I'm going to have to put it out of its misery."

Poor Nate, such a sissy for a sister! I cried as I turned away. I heard the stone hitting the earth, and when I looked back at my brother, his face was grim but the line was cut. The tiny catch was thrown back in the lake, not the intended Catch and Release.

_

Fishing is a patience game and can be as frustrating as a round of golf. You like the idea of it until you're 15 over. What you need is experience and a good arm. My son Berto beamed and looked toward us every time he cast on Saturday, and the line whipped through the air far out into the lake. My husband and I beamed back and gave him thumbs up, but though his bobber found the water where the fish had been jumping, he got no bites. He needs more fishing.

I wish he could train at the elbow of his great-uncles on my dad's side. They are all excellent fishermen and hunters. They are always going on grand outdoor adventures, bringing home photos of themselves smiling and holding up their prizes or kneeling by them, clutching antlers in both hands. They post them on Facebook and make their friends jealous.

Me? I stink. The most pleasure I have ever had fishing was in a stream up by Horseshoe Bend, Idaho. I found a sweet spot on a large stone in the middle of the slow current. There I sat alone with the summer breeze, in the water up to my knees and ample shade from the trees above me. I don't believe I was really trying, and I doubt there was anything but minnows nipping at my boots. The serenity of the setting, however, could have kept me there all day with nary a flirtation.

_

The draw of the bite and the hope for a "Big one" will get you out the door and on the road to nowhere before dawn. The more you go fishing, I'll wager, the more you think Next time! or Bigger yet. But what I love best about fishing is the conversation with nature and the bonding with family (Right, Natie?).

That's why I hope we get at least our oldest two fishing licenses this year. Oh, to have the chance to say often, as a fact of life, "Sorry, we can't. Goin fishing."

Hoboken Style, Baby!

I want a New Jersey cake, and I want it in the shape of the Mystery Machine, only I want the figures of my four kids, made out of modeling chocolate, to be sitting in it with Scooby-Doo, sticking their smiling faces out its windows.

Come on, Buddy. I know you can do it. After all:

"They call me Buddy...I'm the BOSS!"

My whole family has been saying that repeatedly lately, trying to get the Italian-American, New Jersey accent just right. Challenging each other by doing really bad to middling impersonations of Buddy Valastro, from the TLC show Cake Boss, one right after the other.

Our little Ella-Belle does it the best, and she's not trying all that hard. Working on her 100 piece puzzles and not even glancing up, she just throws it out there with bravado after one of the rest of us fails miserably, They call me Buddy..I'm the Boss. She looks a little Irish, but speaks American-Italian, I guess.

Cake Boss, with Buddy, has definitely been one of our favorite discoveries on Netflix.

And thank goodness for Netflix - so cheap, so worth it. Since my husband and I got married, we have never had cable. Never. We didn't even have a television for the first several months. We used to spend our evenings sitting around coloring in coloring books and listening to San Antonio Spurs games on the radio. Playing card games. Listening to our neighbors' conversations. We didn't know what to do with each other until we started having babies.

And now, with our four kiddos, we've fallen in love anew over Cake Boss. And my husband knows that he's in big trouble if he watches one without me. We scatter ourselves about in the living room on weekends to watch a talented man with an unusual vocation make beautiful and interesting cakes to bring joy to New Jersey residents and the world.

We also watch his family tease, prank, argue with, celebrate, and display abundant affection for each other. It's one of the best things about the show. All the cousins and in-laws and the matriarch, Buddy's Italian mama, are in everybody's business, but they also hold family as being more important than anything else. Every new marriage is a beautiful, honored occasion, and every new baby is a supreme blessing. I like that. I know there are good and bad sides to everything, but I wish my kids could grow up surrounded by grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles.

The show does make me jealous, however. If only I had a gift with fondant. If only I could mold Rice Krispie treats into anything on the planet or in the stars. If only I could make a thousand different fillings for cake and perfect buttercream instead of frosting that tastes and operates like Spackle! I'd be somewhere by now. I'd be really something. I'd also probably be fat, because I cannot easily resist ganache.

Instead my baking life is like this: in order to include them and spend quality time with them, I bake with my toddler and preschooler who think that germs are a necessary additive to any batter. My Danny Sammy dips his finger into the flour and then licks it. After I admonish him and then turn my back to grab a utensil, he does it again. And my Ella Belle is looking at him and nodding, You go for it!, because she is happily pressing brown sugar into her mouth or digging out wads of batter with her nails to shove in her pie hole.

But regardless of germs for flavor, how could I ever make any kind of dessert as presentable, nay - beautiful, as Buddy makes his cakes? Sugar flowers, outrageously smooth fondant, brilliant colors, carefully sculpted chocolate. It cannot be done by me, because I was born without the plating/decorative gene. I was dropped onto this planet believing that as long as it tastes alright, and goes down decent, how it looks doesn't matter. It can be strange, unappetizing colors, but as long as it's edible, I believe in it, and it will surely land on the table.

When I was a girl, I went over to my friend's house one afternoon, and we made chocolate chip cookie batter. After watching me drop a few tablespoons of the batter onto the baking sheet as quickly as I could in order to get those cookies cooking, my younger friend began to scold me shrilly, "What are you doing? That's a mess! They're going to be ugly cookies. You're supposed to make them perfect little mounds like this!"

"All that matters is that they taste good," I retorted. "Who cares what they look like!"

She confiscated my spoon.

This is why I make the birthday cakes in this house, but my husband decorates them. It's our collaborative gift to the kids. My extra gift to them is staying far away from the "make the cake look pretty and special" magic. Because you know, when I do my best at frosting a cake, it looks like this:

Umm-hmmm. That was my poor son's celebration cake for getting elected to Student Council. Tasted good. But that is definitely not worthy of Buddy's exclamation, "That's how we do it Hoboken style, baby!"

Parks, Trees and Love Carvings

As I panted and limped, climbed, slid and jumped on the play forts, I felt like the lame gazelle attracting the murderous attention of the lioness. There were two other people to chase, but I was picked on every time; I was an easy, too tempting target - caught again and again. My children thought it was great fun to have Mama joining playground tag, and even the four-year-old took advantage when my knee gave out.


But never mind. I enjoyed the exercise. I enjoyed feeling like a child, racing to the bottom of a slide ahead of my toddler or scaling the faux rock wall after him. I enjoyed trying to avoid my children's outstretched arms, though I failed miserably, but I did not enjoy being chased. I have a horror of being chased. It feels like the harder I push, the slower I go, so the only option is to turn and face my pursuer with palms out and giggle in a high, unnatural pitch like a crazy idiot. The hope is then that they'll back away slowly, shaking their heads. That doesn't work with my kids. They know Mama's a little strange and it no longer scares them. So they tag me, the little rapscallions, and I am forced to try to catch them - the more luck to me!

Despite my disappointing performance in playground tag and regardless of the heat, I relished being at the park with my children recently. I'm still, I must protest, a country girl at heart, and there are a few special parks in this city where if you turn your back to the road, you feel as if you might actually be somewhere far removed from concrete and artificial light (except for the jungle gyms, basketball and volleyball courts, of course) because of all the wide expanses of green, the little hills and the shade trees.

After tag and swing time, we went to watch my eldest ride his skateboard down a dirt hill, and we all tried this form of dry sledding - bottoms and feet on the slightly curved board as we barreled down, digging the wheels into the dirt with our weight. My son's wheels got all mucked up; he refused to let us ride more, so I invited the kids to sit with me beneath a giant eucalyptus. I leaned my back into the trunk, world's away from the city but within walking distance, and began to rest, perchance to dream.

A while later when I was standing and examining my friend, the tree, and wondering whether it was in fact a eucalyptus (the bark was right, the leaves were not), my son approached and said, "This would be a good tree for carving your name."

"There are names here. See." I pointed.

At least, I assumed they were names. They could have been bad words, but I like to think not. It's bad enough that those abound on the play equipment.

Then I thought about how I have always wanted to carve "H loves M" into a tree. I'm pretty sure my Man would scoff at the idea rather than be flattered, but what he wouldn't know wouldn't hurt him. Briefly, I fingered the car keys in my purse. Would they do the job, I wondered? It might require more labor on my part with no pocket knife. As I pondered this I recalled how as a teenager, my dad pointed out an expanse of forest near the now defunct Cougar Mountain Lodge on the road to Cascade, Idaho. He told how he had carved his and mom's names into a tree there when they were dating. Dad, Mom and I spent some little time trying to find the wooden edifice to Dad's ardor. All those years ago Dad could have added an addendum, "twenty-seven years and still going strong". Alas, we didn't find the old fellow, and the testament to young love was surely faded by then, anyway.

I zipped the purse back up. Today was not the day to scratch at this maybe eucalyptus in this city park. Was it really likely I'd come back years from now, tell the tale of a harrowing game of playground tag, and show the carving to my children or grandchildren? Besides, I didn't want to cause any harm to the bark of my friend in the heat of summer, and I didn't want to get caught by a parks and rec employee. I took my kids back to the playground, and we played in our little country haven until it was time to head back home in the city.

This pretty red Dean - short

There are times when I suspect I only keep a guitar around for these last two months of the year. I get restless come early November. I glance at the corner where its case reposes, and I feel a desire to strum, to pluck, and to bruise the ends of my delicate fingers on its wire strings - all for a little fa-la-la, ho ho ho, or a rambunctious chorus of Feliz Navidad!

Today I found the time. (If you can find the time for something, I always believe that Sunday is the time to find it. Lately, I've been on a losing streak for finding time, but when you keep a sabbath day the minutes seem to pace themselves with your perusal of the paper, your coffee-sipping and your pointless shlumping around in PJs) I unsnapped the guitar case - a merry sound, a sound of anticipation! - and I pulled my guitar on my knee, sat down at the edge of my chair, and warmed her up. Clumsy fingers, clumsy voice, bad timing on my Angels We have Heard and my Feliz Navidad, but then my preschooler was dancing, my toddler's eyes were alight, and my eldest daughter came and sang behind me as my fingers finally remembered my F chord for another round of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Silver Bells.

By the time my finger tips were purple with pressing down the strings and absorbing the shock of my glad strumming, my husband had come and entertained me and my girls with his goofy but energetic dance to Up on the Housetop. After watching our daughters join him in dancing like those happy Peanuts characters, I put the guitar away, snapped the case again. Then I blew on my fingers to lessen the pain of holiday music brilliance. Oh, well - I'll get my calluses back before Christmas. I've got a fair amount of jingle belling, gloria trilling and Feliz Navidading left to do.

I want a clown van and three bikes for our 10th, baby

"Twenty years is not long enough."

My Man and I had just finished watching Young Victoria when I said this, misty-eyed. Albert and Victoria - it's one of those high-profile romances of history. Queen Victoria lost Albert after 20 years of marriage, and they say she still laid out his clothes every day til she died. Unfortunately, I have not read enough about the history of British monarchs to know if the tale I'm presented with is true, but it still makes a great story on film.

As the credits rolled at the end of Young Victoria, I added, "And ten years....that seems like so little time. Maybe when you're first married, it might seem like a good chunk if you thought of it, but looking back - it's no time at all."

My Man nodded as we gazed at each other. We were sopping up our love for each other, and we were plotting what we would do with the rest of our evening.

We've just celebrated our 10th anniversary, you know. I look back on that young woman who married a man from Albuquerque, and honestly, I don't know what she did with herself. She certainly had far too much time on her hands.Yes, she wrote each day on a couple books she hoped to have published; she sent out manuscripts which got rejected (does anyone even flog around a manuscript anymore?), but she slept in to ungodly hours and actually went out alone with her husband without a gaggle of children in her wake as if that were the most natural thing in the world. The woman who grew out of that new bride is a human being so much more well-rounded and interesting. Also, thanks to her four children, she is daily reminded of her faults and strengths and never has to go anywhere alone for the next sixteen years at least.

The most enchanting thing is this: she is still madly in love with her Man. That is why ten years...well, it's a paltry amount. Yes, we've achieved so much in that time - mainly the introduction to the world of four children whom we guard as they grow, discipline, play with and talk to about life's challenges and adventures. They're a little army of goodwill set to improve the world, because we damn well care about how they turn out. My Man and I love each other, and from that sprang our fierce love for all of them.

There wasn't much of a to-do on our anniversary milestone. We had a doctor's appointment for our youngest, and swim lessons for the older kids. Then we took our kids to Wal-mart and on a whim bought them each a new bike (except the baby). I giggled for the rest of the day about that - what an appropriate way to celebrate your 10th: take your young uns and treat them to spankin new bikes, let them test them out in the store aisles until an irascible old lady scolds you, the parents, for letting your offspring run amuck. Then haul the bikes out to your van and try to solve the greatest problem you're ever attempted to use your little gray cells on. Namely, just how on earth can you fit six people and three bikes into a minivan?

Well, the easy answer is, you can't and it's foolish to even attempt. But we were determined to turn our minivan into a clown van, despite the fact that I think I saw it trembling from fright. After some tears and some near-hysterical laughter, we had one bike in the back under the hatch, one bike wedged in front of the two youngest's car seats, and one bike looked like a contortionist's mechanical apprentice in the front passenger side. This bike I examined with some chagrin, because I was told by My Man that it was possible to sit between it and the chair back, which I had grave doubts about. I began to bob and weave, duck my head to and fro, fold up my arms in bizarre formations, but I could find no way to squeeze myself in.

After watching this fool's spectacle for many moments, My gallant Man pulled me out of the way and said, "You drive."

"But..."

"Just drive. I'll fit!"

I'm sure the fact that he has considerably less curves than I explained his ability to glide easily into position, though his head was bent at a decidedly alarming angle. I drove home like a slug, because I had no desire to invite a collision of any sort with that much loose metal surrounding my family.

Safely home I took a picture of our children by their gleaming new bikes, so I could remember just what My Man and I did to celebrate our 10th and just where we were in our lives on that significant day.

The Red Rocks of Sedona...Red of Road Trip Hell

This post explains my insane and constant yearning to explore Native American ruins, my ambiguous feelings about Sedona, and my fear of small town roundabouts.

These are the red rocks of Sedona, Arizona. Pretty, aren't they?

But we had no intention of viewing them on Labor Day. Nor did we intend to go 15 mph down the curvy US 89 A, passing the camera back and forth in an attempt to catch all their glory through the bug-bespattered glass of our car windows. It happened because of bad choices and worse luck.

On a dark and stormy night...no, just kidding! It was a warm and cloudy desert morning, and we were leaving Albuquerque early (but not early enough as it so happens), blazing our way west on the I-40 and thumbing our city noses at the historic Route 66 near Gallup, and all its superior scenery.

I had high hopes for the trip home, because the destination was only home, and Matthew had promised we could stop off at the Homolovi Ruins just east of Winslow, Arizona. Nothing makes my heart pitter-patter like a good Native American puebloan ruin unless there just happens to be an archaeological dig happening at the time we visit.

The kids had high hopes that we would afterwards stop at a park in Flagstaff and run around in the clear mountain air like city folk do-gawking at every flower and hummingbird and kissing trees and small animals as we pass.

Our hopes were too high. This I now know. If we had anticipated nothing more than stinky gas station restrooms, plain sandwiches thrown at us in the car for lunch and stale chips scraped off the van floor and assigned likenesses to various presidential profiles, we would have had a fair day. I shake my head sadly at our impossibly high hopes.

Let me set the scene. There was a teething baby in the car - a sweet-natured baby but a teething one nonetheless. There was a young boy with an often and urgent need to go potty, and a little girl whose best dream was to play in a park on the way home. And there was a preschooler with candy from a birthday party.

I was at times smooshed between my baby and my son in the rear seat, and at other times risking my life and an embarrassing traffic ticket by stumbling over various obstacles and abandoning ladylike posture to climb into the front seat beside my husband. And when I was in that front seat, I turned into the road trip Nazi, shushing every little request for food or water or Scooby-Doo videos in an attempt to keep the baby asleep as long as possible. Meanwhile, Saint Matthew was driving the car.

Fate gave us an early handout at The Petrified Forest National Park before it spent the rest of the time laughing faintly but persistently in our ears.You see, we had to take that turnoff because a. the baby woke up so b. I agreed to finally allow the car to stop moving for a potty break.

Matthew filled up, and I took the kids to the restroom. Afterward, I snuck into the visitor's center with the kids when Matthew wasn't looking. At the Information Desk stood a thin dark-skinned man in a spiffy forest ranger uniform, a long black braid down his back.

"Where do we see some petrified wood?" I whispered, glancing over my shoulder.

The ranger examined me a moment and then decided to answer my idiotic question. His voice had an unusual lilting quality to it, as if he had lately been speaking an ancient Native American dialect.

"Well, we have some out there for viewing, but here's a map of the park," he said, pointing to the large picture on the wall five inches from my face. "There are several hiking trails."

"Oh, we couldn't possibly get out of the car," I said with a shifty glance around me.

"Are you headed to Flagstaff?" He asked. I nodded. "Then you just take the 180 instead. It's only 45 minutes longer."

"And can you see the Painted Desert from there?" I asked innocently.

Again I got that strange unfathomable look. "Yes," he answered slowly, "and the largest pieces of petrified wood are here," he added, pointing to a spot on the map near some public restrooms.

"That's five feet from where we are!" I said excitedly.

"No, we're here," he answered, moving his finger a good several inches. "That's on the other side of the park."

Oh, my husband won't drive that far off the freeway," I told him. "It's a chronic road trip problem."

I studied the map wistfully, and then I saw a marker that made my heart skip - Puerco Pueblo!

"Is this a Native American ruin?" I asked. "I love ruins!"

"Yes," he answered, glancing anxiously toward other tourists poised with equally stupid questions. Then he pulled out a pamphlet from beneath the Information Desk. "There's a map there," he said, pointing to the back of it and then deserting me.

I hustled the kids out into the bright sunshine and beat it out to where large logs of petrified wood lay in a courtyard, glistening in the sun with their jewel-toned ribbons of color. The kids started pounding them. Then I saw Matthew approaching.

"I forgot the camera," I told him. "You want me to go get it?"

"No, it's time to go."

"Ahwww," said me and the kids.

"Honey, there's a Native American ruin here!" I said as we walked. "Let's go see it."

"Is that your stop?" he asked bluntly.

We piled into the car, and Matthew backed out of the parking space.

"Why can't we see both?" I tried desperately. "Two Native American ruins! And the Painted Desert!"

"No," said Matthew. "It's this or Homolovi, but not both. So which is it? Better be quick."

It was too much pressure. I had contemplated Homolovi since the evening before. The site was a complete unknown to me; I couldn't remember reading anything about it. The mystery of it drew me like a magnet. Yet, here we were in the Petrified Forest near the Painted Desert-our first time ever in all the trips made to Albuquerque that we had actually stopped on this spot to use the National Parks Services bathrooms. What should I do?

It didn't matter; it was too late. Matthew had turned left away from the entrance to the park.

"Is that where you pay?" I asked, looking to the right where cars were lined up.

"Yep," Matthew answered. We were pulling out onto I-40.

I felt instant remorse that I didn't take the opportunity to see petrified wood in a colorful desert and a ruin to boot. But I still had Homolovi. It might be great, or it might be...well, a handful of stones scattered around. I spent the next hour imagining what I might find there...until we finally saw the sign.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"It's closed."


I looked up.What looked like a giant rectangle of red tape cut diagonally across the brown park services sign that read Homolovi Ruins, and it said in capital letters: CLOSED.

Fate smacked me in the face and laughed hysterically in my ear. Why do you think the baby woke up and everyone needed to use the restroom at the Petrified Forest? it mocked. You had your chance, silly girl.

I had no response to that, so I threw a tantrum.

"No, nooo! Why...why?" I moaned, pulling my hair with intermittent pauses to shake my fist in the air. Then I threw the Petrified Forest pamphlet on the ground and turned on Matthew.

"Why did you make me choose?" I wailed. "If you had just said it was okay to see them both, then it wouldn't have mattered!"

"I gave you a choice, and you made your decision," he replied.

"I know I made my decision, but I had it in my head we were going to see Homolovi. And now it's closed, and we won't see anything at all. And it's so hard to get you to stop; you never want to go anywhere!"

"I did agree to stop," said Matthew, finally irritated. "I told you we could go to Homolovi, and you had your choice between that and The Petrified Forest."

I railed some more, but it doesn't matter. It didn't help repair my dashed hopes that lay all over I-40.

The baby fell asleep. I climbed into the front seat, my bottom and feet in the air for a few minutes before I could right myself. Then I pulled out the map again to look for something, anything left to me, and while I looked at Homolovi marked by the highway, I had a flashback to another trip home from Albuquerque. I had pleaded, half-jokingly, for Matthew to stop at this ruin just off the highway, and when we had approached it, he had said in mock sadness, "Ahh, it's closed. Look at that."

"It's been closed for a while," I said, dazed. "I just forgot. We should have seen Petrified Forest-we were already there."

The only thing left was Wupatki Ruins just north of Flagstaff. But we would have to drive 40+ miles up to it and backtrack again. Even I couldn't ask Matthew to do that. Besides, even though I had seen pictures of those beautiful ruins, you have to hike to get the best view of them, and you can't even enter some of them unless you pay for a guided tour.

While I was contemplating this, the sign for the Meteor Crater popped up.

"You want to go there?" asked Matthew. "If you want to go, I'll take you. Really this time."

Yes, because there was another time when we had pulled off on that gravel road to find some restrooms and eat lunch, and since we were already there, Matthew had agreed to see how far it was to the Meteor Crater. After driving fifty feet, however, he had turned the car around. "It's too far. We better get back on the road," he'd said.

But it was poor consolation. I watched the exit get closer and closer. Matthew would have to change lanes. I couldn't decide; it wasn't what I had wanted...

"Well?" said Matthew. "Tell me now. It's right there."

"Uhhhh...."I responded.

And then a semi sped up between us and the necessary lane change, and we passed the exit.

"I couldn't decide," I said mournfully, looking back.

"Are we at the meteor?" Berto, our son, piped in at this point.

"No!" I snapped. "If we were at the meteor, there'd be a big hole in the ground, and I'd say, 'Look, kids, there's a big hole in the ground.' Do you see a big hole in the ground?"

Berto looked around just to be safe, and Matthew gave me a reproving look.

I was obviously on the doorstep of road trip hell.

And Ella was asleep. This upset me more, because she had asked for lunch before the Closed Homolovi Ruins exit, and I had told her to wait-we'd be eating when we stopped. Now she was asleep with only Tostitos and candy in her belly. I threw everyone else their sandwich.

"Here," I said. "We're not stopping."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

And we weren't, because the friends we were supposed to meet at a park in Flagstaff never called us back. No running barefoot through the grass, doing cartwheels in the sun and kissing squirrels and butterflies as they flitted past.


"Look, you want to stop at Montezuma's Well?" said my generous husband. "That's still on the way."

"We'd have to go down through Sedona," I said, not sure if we should push our luck.

"I'm pretty sure there's an exit off the 17," said Matthew.

"But you have to go back north," I replied. "It's easier just to wind down through Sedona and take the exit off the 89."

Never mind that I had no clue what exit that was and whether it was near Cottonwood or Clarkdale. The map in my hands didn't list Native American sights, stupid thing.

"I've got to stop somewhere for gas," said Matthew. "Am I stopping in Flagstaff?"

We were almost there, and the baby was still asleep. I hesitated. For no reason did I want to wake my sweet baby who spent his alert moments crying and reaching out his arms pitifully to me from his car seat. Still, should we really go down through Sedona? Dare we tempt the road trip gods again? I only vaguely remembered the trip we'd taken to see Montezuma's Castle and Tuzigoot for my birthday a few years before. The Well was somewhere around there. It was the one thing we'd missed that day.

"Listen, I promise I'll take you to The Petrified Forest next trip to Albuquerque."

"Really?" I said, my voice lifting in renewed hope. "Thank you."

"Okay, so is that good then? Or do you still want to see Montezuma's Well?"

"I still want to see the Well," I blurted. "Daniel's asleep, and it's easier than taking a separate trip, isn't it? Then we could stop in Sedona for gas instead."

I could almost see Matthew steeling himself, and I felt a twinge of anxiety; I had made the call that would make or break the trip.

Five minutes later we navigated a major intersection with 89 A that had no stop lights, only two stop signs but plenty of impatient cars. The scenery once we hit that road was beautiful, all lush trees and some other greenery that resembled what we city folk term "weeds", but pretty, very pretty in a country setting. We soon came on the famous Red Rocks of Sedona. We had plenty of time to view them, too, because the speed limit quickly dropped to 30 mpr. Then the lines disappeared in the middle of the road, and we traveled downhill smack up against those red rocks that created sharp turns. The speed limit dropped to 15 mpr, and holiday traffic became heavy.

At first I uneasily commented on the lovely scenery, unnerved by Matthew's marked silence and the knowledge of my own bad decision. But as we began getting views of gorgeous Oak Creek and all the luxury cabins and resorts nestled on its banks, my muttered expressions of false enthusiasm were interrupted by the van.

"Ku-thunk..ku-thunk," it said.

Matthew gritted his teeth.

"What's going on?" I asked nervously as we navigated the cars lined up on either side of the road.

"It doesn't like down-shifting right now," said Matthew, braking as someone pulled off (ku-thunk, said the van). "It's been doing that for a while."

Matthew braked down the steep grade often and every time the van protested - "ku-thunk!". We were moving with all the grace and speed of a slug. Meanwhile, wealthy people waved merrily at us from the spacious decks of their luxury cabins overlooking Oak Creek.
"My boss has a time share here," commented Matthew.

"I think I see him," I replied.

"Can we stop and play?" asked Ana.

"We'll see, we'll see," I responded with misgivings in my heart.

"Papa, I need to go potty," said Berto.

There was nary a gas station in sight. We traveled a few more miles, sure we would spot one. We couldn't just park along the road; you had to have an official Red Rock pass to do that. Finally, we stopped at a coffee shop. There seemed to be plenty of those around as if espresso were the bizarre mutant offspring of Oak Creek and its luxury accommodations, and the people of Sedona were doing their darndest to find all those little coffee blends good homes.

The van still needed gas, and I was waiting for my own turn to use the little girl's room. Even when we started off again and approached Main Street Sedona, we didn't see one. That major thoroughfare supported only two kinds of businesses: the coffee shop and the art house.

"How can they support this many coffee shops?" I wondered aloud.

"It's all these roundabouts," Matthew growled as we navigated another one. "They think they can trap you."

He was right. Stop lights are apparently passe in Sedona. Every fifty feet there was another roundabout to slow us down, make us dizzy and allow pedestrians to jog past us gleefully, sloshing their premium coffees and waving their latest abstract paintings at confused drivers. Matthew finally found a gas station; he just had to ride a roundabout the whole way 'round before he could get to it. Then he had to backup to the pump.

"Everybody out," he ordered. "And you," he pointed at me. "Use the restroom."

I'm not usually one to disobey orders, but I wanted to get one clear shot of the famous Red Rocks. While I was snapping the camera with Daniel in my arms, Matthew shoved the kids back into the van and parked in front of the gas station. I quickly turned to enter when a sign posted on the door halted my progress.

I looked at Matthew and pointed: Restroom Out of Order.

Road Trip Gone to Hell.

I hopped back in the car and said to Matthew, "Just get back on the 17. Forget the Well."

"Dang right," he responded, or something in that line, anyway.

Ana sat up. "Aren't we stopping at a park?" she asked for the twentieth time that hour.

"No."

"Well, can we go to one when we get home?" she whinnied like a little heartbroken mare.

"No," said Matthew sharply. "We just need to get home and relax."

"We can go to a crummy city park any old day, Ana. I wanted to see a Native American ruin," I whined.

"You mean we're not going to a park at all?" Her voice had reached the crescendo before the tears. She began to weep bitterly.

"Seriously?" demanded Matthew, jerking around in his seat. "You're going to cry about this?"

"Honey, they thought we were going to a park before we even left Albuquerque," I reminded him. "I'd be crying too."

To make everyone feel better, I proceeded to narrate everything that had gone wrong on the trip thus far. After saying "stinks" and "Native American ruin" and "park" twenty times apiece, I summed up with, "And it's just been a stinky, stinky trip!"

"Finished?" said Matthew.

I was. And soon we were on the 17 toward home going 35 mph, because, of course, every city family was heading home at exactly the same time on Labor Day like some mindless mechanical cattle. I wanted to say, "Stupid city people!", but I could not. To thy own kind be true, they say.

Not long afterwards we passed the brown sign for Montezuma's Well, but none of us had the heart to try and salvage the trip.

Snard's My Name, Getting a Learnin's My Game (Wish It Weren't)

Once when I was an adolescent, I sat on the couch watching TV and being poked. Mercilessly. By my big brother.

He was using his finger like the force of the Jedi to poke me every few seconds in my side. Being non-confrontational, I just squirmed and kept up a steady chorus of, "Stop, Nate. Just Stop. Stop it! Please stop. Don't Poke me! Stop it NATE!"

After several minutes of this chorus, my mom, who was making dinner at the time, finally decided to do something about the ruckus coming from the other room.

She yelled out in frustration, "Hillary! Be quiet! Gracious sake's, I can't even concentrate in here!"

A slow triumphant grin overspread my brother's face. Snard: 0 big brother: 1

I'm the snard, of course. That was my brother's special invented name for me while we were growing up. I once kept a little notebook to copy down words I didn't know from books I was reading. I'd look up the words and write the definition in the notebook. Natie snatched it from me once and wrote S-n-a-r-d: little sister named Hillary who's in constant need of a learnin.

Nate's propensity for poking people in order to "learn" them was the reason why on all family car trips I was forced to sit between him and Annie. Annie couldn't stand to be touched, and Nate had an urge to poke and harass his fellow passengers. The end result? Annie continually told me over hundreds of miles to, "Move your elbow, Hillary! Are you tapping your foot? Stop touching me!" Then she'd shove me Nate's way, and he'd poke me several times with a diabolical grin on his face. At which point I'd hunker toward Annie's side of the car again, and she'd begin her litany of complaints about the disposition of my limbs before pushing me back to the official "Learner" for a lesson. Frankly, I'm just glad I survived to tell the tale, though I have no doubt that at every rest stop, I emerged from the car wide-eyed and quivering like a jackrabbit ready to flee a predator - two predators actually.

Don't get me wrong. Despite the learnins, Nate and I were buddies. Heck, somebody had to be the little brother he was so wrongfully denied, the gullible one willing to play deer and hunter with dangerous weapons homemade from sticks and rubber bands.

And I tried hard to be that little brother for the big brother I loved like a super hero, but there were definite signs that I was but a girl (or snard) at heart. For instance, on warm summer days Nate and I would line up our army men with careful precision in the rich dirt of the garden. Our troops properly deployed, we attempted to devastate each other's armies with large dirt clods we flung across the several feet separating us. I made the girly mistake of taking aim at the tiny green soldiers at ground level; Nate had the more effective strategy of flinging the dirt clods with little pebbles in them toward the opposing general (that would be me). With every "ouch....hey!" elicited from me by such brutal tactics, I am confident Natie was simply trying to teach me a valuable lesson for later in life. Honestly, though, twenty-some-odd years later, I still can't figure out what that lesson was.

Then there was that little mix-up with me about my GI Joe named Lightfoot. I loved him because he was yellow, my favorite color, and because I thought he was named after the Canadian folk singer, Gordon Lightfoot, whose music my dad loved and practically reared us on. It never occurred to me to think he was called Lightfoot as in "fleet-footed", so I took to calling him Gordon. I loved that GI Joe like no other. He was the only one that was officially mine, anyway - the one I played with in all those straw and twig forts Nate and I built beneath the walnut trees. But a tragic problem developed with his "fleet-footed" legs. They kept falling off at the knee. My dad attempted to glue them back on several times, but it never lasted. I finally decided we needed to have a funeral for Gordon, and so we did and buried him near the garden. I have no doubt Nate was mumbling, "snard!", under his breath the whole entire time.

Nate and I eventually gave up those pastimes as well as our creek side wars with micro machines to move on to more exciting games. When we got older we liked to pretend fence, though the risk of serious injury with our pretend fencing was akin to that involved with the real deal - without the protective armor. We tried having sword fights with wimpy plastic coke bottles, but the "POP! POP!" noise every time we made contact was very irritating and the tiny little lips of the bottles made for very poor gripping. So we raided Mom and Dad's closet where there were literally dozens of white, metal curtain rods. I have no clue why they were there; there certainly weren't that many windows in our home. I can only think that if a black market for curtain rods existed, Mom was involved somehow - possibly the ring leader. Of course she forbade us on several occasions to sword fight with her curtain rods. I'm sad to say we were delinquent and didn't listen. Eventually, every single rod in our home, saving those with curtains attached, ended up badly dented and bent from our fierce brother/sister fencing matches.

The strong urge I have to take fencing lessons as an adult can be attributed to the fact that I never beat my brother in our rod fights. Our last duel ended with me backed into a corner by the front door, desperately cutting my rod across the space in front of me in an attempt to stave off Natie's onslaughts as he came at me laughing with eyes blazing. I think he forgot I was just a snard in that moment instead of a real brother. Mom and Dad were out grocery shopping, so I had no contingency plan. I believe I just kept weakly crying "Uncle! Mercy!" until the fateful moment when Nate's weapon smashed against my index finger, and I yelped. As the appendage turned all red and blue, a frantic look of concern took hold of Natie's features; the invincible curtain rod warrior vanished.

"Are you okay? Are you okay?" he kept repeating as he followed me to the bathroom and watched me wash it in cold water.

When I finally mumbled, "I'm fine. I guess..." he promptly added, "Good. Whew! Now, quick! - go to bed before Mom and Dad get home!"

Good old memories of childhood - busted fingers, pop guns and playing fort together in the old chicken coup! Still, we must all do our duty of growing up, so we can change and have the next generation of snards. Soon you find you have to get to know your siblings anew as mature individuals. I confess that since my brother Nate and I live so far apart from each other, I am jealous of the friends and co-workers who must know the adult Nate so much better than I do simply because they are able to spend a greater quantity of time with him. Ah, but I do know they have never built a GI Joe fort with him in the grass, or made tracks with micro-machines in the soft dirt by a creek, or engaged with him in sword fights with Mom's curtain rods. At least, I seriously doubt they have. So, I'm content, because for a large part of my childhood, I got to be my brother's little brother, and that doesn't change no matter how little we see each other now or how great the miles grow between us. After all, I'll always be a snard. At least to him.