Dick's Latest Creation and a Scary Poem

Every year it's the same. My dear husband puts off carving pumpkins until the last minute, but when he gets to it he throws heart and soul into the project. Personally, I am scared of sharp objects, convinced I'll slice off a finger while handling an Exacto blade, or even a kitchen knife. I have a little hand saw that works pretty well... Anyway, he claims to have thought about this all year. My dopey smiling jack-o-lantern is nothing memorable, but his snowman made from three stacked pumpkins sports charcoal for eyes, nose, mouth and buttons. There's no way to light it, which is a disappointment to me, since lit pumpkins are what I like best. Anyway, he's proud as punch, so I decided to show the world.

Here's a little poem that's quite a tongue twister from my days of teaching English.

Ravin's of a Piute Poet Poe

by C.L. Edson

(Scholastic Magazine, 1963)

Once upon a midnight dreary -- eerie, scary -- I was wary;

I was weary, full of sorry, thinking of my lost Lenore.

Of my cheery, eerie, faery, fiery dearie -- nothing more.

I lay napping when a rapping on the overlapping coping

woke me -- grapping, yapping, groping -- I went hopping,

leaping!, hoping that the rapping on the coping

was my little lost Lenore.

That, on opening the shutter, to admit the latter critter,

in she'd flutter from the gutter, with her bitter eyes aglitter.

So I opened wide the door -- what was there?

The dark wier and the drear moor -- or, I'm a liar!:

The dark mire, the drear moor, the mere door ...

And nothing more.

Then in stepped a stately raven, shaven like the Bard of Avon.

Yes, a shaven, rovin' raven seeking haven at my door.

And that grievin', rovin' raven had been movin' (get me, Steven?!)

For the warm and loving haven of my stove and oven door.

Oven door and ... nothing more!

Ah, distinctly I remember, every ember that December

Turned from amber to burnt umber. (I was burning limber lumber

in my chamber that December and it left an amber ember.)

With each silken sad uncertain flirtin' of a certain curtain,

That old raven, cold and callous, perched upon the bust of Pallas

just above my chamber door -- a lusty, trusty bust thrust

just above my chamber door.

Had that callous cuss shown malice, or sought solace there on Pallas?

You may tell us, Alice Wallace! Tell this soul with nightmares ridden,

Hidden in the shade and broodin', if a maiden out of Eden

Sent this sudden bird invadin' my poor chamber

(and protrudin' half an inch above my door!).

Tell this broodin' soul (he's breedin' bats by so much sodden readin'--

Readin' Snowden's "Ode to Odin"!) ...

Tell this soul with nightmares ridden if -- no kiddin'! --

on a sudden, he shall clasp a radiant maiden born in Aiden

(or in Leyden, or indeed in Baden-Baden) ...

Will he grab this buddin' maiden, gaddin' in forbidden Eden,

Whom the angels named Lenore? And that bird said, "Nevermore!"

"Prophet", cried I, "thing of evil, navel, novel, or boll weavil,

You shall travel! On the level! Scratch the gravel now, and travel --

Leave my hovel, I implore!"

And that raven, never flitting (never knitting, never tatting,

never spouting Nevermore) still is sitting (out this ballad!)

On the solid bust, and pallid -- on the vallid, pallid, bust

Above my chamber door.

And my soul is in the shadow which lies floating on the floor --

Fleeting, floating (yachting, boating) on the fluting of the matting,

Matting of my chamber door!

[And that's all there is, and nothin' more!]

Autumn Scenes My World

Autumn here so far has been dark and wet, the rain stripping the trees of their bright colors, and hampering the farmers from bringing in their corn and soybeans. Sunday there was a break in the rain, so I went out driving around the county looking at the scenery.

There's a little country cemetery on Highway 14 near Evansville. I couldn't resist stopping to read the old stones and take pictures.

This morning the fog was thick, and the streetlight across the way made the sugar maple glow like a lighted jack-o-lantern. I don't have a tripod, so the image is a little blurred, but the mysterious feeling comes through anyway.

Why we decided to build our deck around our maple is beyond me, since it drops little red buds and seed helicopters in spring and in fall leaves carpet the boards. My little plastic lighted pumpkin doesn't look bothered, though.

The End of the 1994 Interview with Grandma

Bernice and Howard Tess, 1960

I finally finished transcribing Grandma Tess's 1994 tape, made for me as a Christmas present. This last section talks about something that can be a problem with researching family history, the issue of names, nicknames, and name changes. So now I'm off to have copies of the memories made, and the scratchy old cassette tape transferred to a digital format.

Bernice continues:

As far as names go, our family changed names quite often it seems. It started out with Mother’s sisters who changed their names off and on during the years. And their families changed their names several times, the girls in the family especially, but not the boys. So when I came along Mother thought nothing of changing my name from Anna Bernice Adams to Bernice Anna Adams. And that only lasted of course t three years, then she walked out on my father, in the first divorce that anyone had ever heard of around the city of Hillyard. That was considered a horrible thing to do in those days and she was a fallen woman so far as her neighbors were concerned. So much so that she took me and we left with McLains, and she went to work as a practical nurse and I was (inaudible). But in the meantime we landed out on the ranch, as I told you before, and my name was once more changed when I was eleven to Smith. And it came from Anna Adams, Anna Bernice Adams, to Bernice Anna Smith.

Carol: That was never done legally, was it?

This was never done legally. But for all intents and purposes I was Bernice Smith again. I never liked the name and I was very unhappy with the change. But I had nothing to say about it. Of course I changed it myself when I got married to my husband Howard. We had a nice short name, Tess, which I always liked. It was easy on the checkbook; you never ran out of room. Easy to spell and easy to remember; easy for other people to remember.

And we had nicknames. Sherry asked about that. Howard was called Howie, much to his distress; he did not like the name. And I was Neecy to my little brother for years. Up until the day he died I think he called me Neecy off and on. Partly to tease me and partly because it was sort of a love bond between us. When he was little he’d cry in his sleep for Neecy, and I always came and he always remembered that.

We were close, perhaps closer than a lot of brother and sisters. We were not half brothers and sister, but all through the years (inaudible). We only lived thirty miles apart. He lived in Racine and we lived in Elkhorn. And he had six children and had a hard time. He (inaudible) school paying for their clothes, and trips out to Elkhorn were expensive. But we’d open up our house on summers and he would come out with the six and his wife Appie, and they would spend two weeks in our house while we were gone on vacation, while they house sat. They had a wonderful time out there and loved it. They loved Elkhorn, and they loved being out close to the country because in Racine they saw nothing but sidewalk and dirty places. So that continued on all through the years. It was a wonderful thing to have a brother, but I always wanted a sister. And in a way Appie filled that spot, but not completely. To have a sister was my dream, but it never came true. Having a brother was the next best thing. We made the most of it.

Oh yes, I must tell you about when we were small, along with the name change. DuRell was christened James Lemuel Durrell. Durrell was his third name. And he went by the name of James and Jimmy, short, until he was two years old. He knew no other name. He didn’t know he had any other name. All of a sudden Mother decided he was going to be DuRell, not James. So we all had quite a time adjusting to that because I likes James better than DuRell and so did most people. But Mother liked DuRell, so he was DuRell. But he had his name changed the same as I did. It’d be very different in this day and age. You couldn’t change around like that, but in those days there were no papers to sign, no Social Security cards, nothing. People didn’t mind if you did things on your own, without going through a lawyer. A lot of people lived that way, so it was very commonplace and we didn’t pay any attention to it.

I’m just about running out of tape so I should make of and of it here. I want to tell everyone what a wonderful life I’ve had, with all its ups and downs. I’ve still lived and loved and a lot of happiness. Some tears, but a lot of joy. I am now 92 years old and this year is 1994. I have a family of five great grandchildren, six grandchildren, my two daughters, and myself. We all live very harmoniously and love each other very much, which is more than can be said of a lot of people. So I figure that I have had a very good life.

I am about to say goodbye to you now Sherry. You’ve been one of my very bright stars, and I want to thank you for the part you’ve taken in my life, and I have enjoyed it very much.

Good-bye for now. It was nice talking to you.