Thirty-Three Months Old

It's been a busy month, but a mostly good one.

Besides the vacation that I already blogged about, we've had a few more adventures, most of which involved playing in water, very appropriate for this time of year.

We took a family trip to the Bicentennial Mall, built in 1996 in celebration of Tennessee's 200th birthday.  It is an outdoor park (not a shopping mall), where you can walk around and learn all about the State of Tennessee.

It also has an area where there are fountains symbolizing the major rivers in the state, which children can play in.  Cooper had a blast!

We went back a couple of weeks later with my friend Laurie, and once again, Cooper enjoyed himself immensely.  It is right next door to the Farmer's Market, so we went there too and got a few goodies that I don't have in my garden.

A few days later we went to another water park, near the Titans' stadium, with one of my friends from MOPS and her two boys, one of which is Cooper's age.  He loved that one too.

My garden is doing very well.  We have had an unusual amount of rain this summer, which has been great for it, and we have gotten all kinds of things from it: green beans, cucumbers (I made pickles with some of them), tomatoes (Cooper pops cherry tomatoes like candy), herbs, peppers, and now squash, which I have been trying to prepare in creative ways so my family will eat it.

We tried to potty train Cooper after our trip, but that didn't go so well, so we decided to just put it on hold for a couple of months and then try again.  People tell us it's easier if you wait until he's three or so.

Nothing yet on the job front for Don, though he's been doing some temporary, part-time work.  It's been kind of nice having him around more, though, so we're enjoying that while we can.

All in all, we're loving the carefree days of summer and making the most of them.

Lessons from a Chimney

     I was walking one morning while visiting my brother’s family in the mountains of North Carolina, when I noticed an old stone chimney standing in the midst of the brush beside the road.  It got me thinking.

     It appeared the fireplace side faced the road, just a few feet away from it.  “Why would the fireplace face that way?” I wondered.  “That would have put the house right in the middle of the road.”  Moments later I felt silly as I realized this house had stood long before the paved road on which I now walked ever existed.

     So what happened to the house?  Likely it burned.  Did the fire start in that very fireplace, a result of a wife’s effort to cook the game brought in by her husband, or just to keep the house warm on a cold, winter’s night?

     What happened to the family who lived there?  Did they escape and build another house nearby, perhaps leaving descendants who still live in the area?  It’s possible they all perished in the fire.  After all, there were no fire alarms in the house to awaken them at the first sign of smoke, no phones to call 911, bringing a fire truck racing to the rescue, its siren blaring as it tried to get there as quickly as possible to save some remnant of the home.

     More likely neighbors came running when they smelled smoke or saw it billowing over the treetops, bringing buckets to bail water from the nearby creek to throw on the fire and try to keep it from spreading.  Perhaps heroic men ran inside the burning house, risking their own lives to try to save a sleeping child.

     But it was too late, at least to save the house.  The family, if they survived, would have to start again from scratch, cutting trees down in the woods with an ax or a hand saw and building a new home.  No insurance money would come in the mail to reimburse them for their losses, though perhaps a group of friends or neighbors may have rallied together to help them through this time of hardship.

     This family would have lived by the sweat of their brows, growing their own food and storing it up for the winter in root cellars or canning jars, smoking meat from the animals they hunted down, or perhaps, if they could afford it, a hog butchered in the fall.  They probably sent their children out to pick berries on summer days, dodging snakes, bears, Indians and other dangers, known or unknown.  Did they lose their food supply in the fire too?  What, then, did they eat?  After all, there would be no food stamps from the government.

     Or possibly they had already moved out of their home long before it burned, maybe migrating west in a covered wagon in search of new opportunities. 

     Life was much harder then.  Harder, but simpler.  There were no cell phones ringing.  No soccer practice or piano lessons to rush to after school.  No Facebook to catch up on each day.  They simply didn’t have time for such frivolity.  A house didn’t need to be big and beautiful with a lush lawn and fancy cars parked in the garage; it only needed to serve as a shelter for the family who lived there. 

     Was it better, or worse, than the lives we live now?  I could argue either way.  There was much more dependence on one’s family, church and community.  People probably found more satisfaction in their work.  There was joy in simple things.  Divorce was nearly unheard of, as it was almost impossible for either a man or a woman to raise a family on their own.  A person who became widowed usually quickly remarried anyone who was available and willing, without regard for whether they were “in love,” or whether that person would make them happy for the rest of their life.  They just needed a companion to help them survive and care for their family.

     They had to be strong.  They had to work hard, day in and day out.   Medical care and sanitation weren’t nearly as advanced, so most people were much more familiar with the sting of death than we are today.  But as a people, they survived.  Survived to carry on the human race, to move forward and leave behind a heritage that we now enjoy.

     I’m sure this old chimney has quite a story to tell, a story I will probably never hear because it is lost to history.  But it represents the lives of generations past, people who helped make us who we are today.  A past that we, too, will someday be a part of.   

     Our forerunners left behind a legacy of hard work and perseverance, of depending on God and on each other.  Which leaves me to wonder, what is the legacy that we are leaving behind for generations to come?

Family Vacation '13 (Part 2 - Great Smoky Mountains)

After we left Boone, we drove to the Smoky Mountains, where we had rented a cabin for 3 nights.  This one was back in the "sticks," at the top of a REALLY steep hill.  We liked it okay, but it was a little unnerving for us city people to feel so far from civilization.

The first day we drove through the Smokies to Cherokee, an Indian reservation on the North Carolina side of the park.  The drive was beautiful, and we stopped to hike on the Oconoluftee Trail, one of only two hiking trails in the park that allows dogs.

Cooper is sort of in an in-between stage, where he thinks he's too big to ride in a stroller (and this wouldn't have been a great place for a stroller anyway), but he's not really ready for long walks either.  That presented a little challenge, but Don and I took turns piggy-backing him when he got tired of walking.

 

 

There is an old farm there that people can tour, which we have done before but not this time, since we had Nash with us.

The next day we left Nash at the cabin and went to breakfast at a pancake house (a family tradition) and then into Gatlinburg and walked the strip and got a few souvenirs.  This time we made Cooper ride in the stroller, which made things more pleasant for all of us.  I have a special liking for handmade soaps, so I got a few different bars of it there and also some saltwater taffy, another favorite of mine.

Afternoons and evenings were spent relaxing in the cabin, which had a nice porch on the front with rocking chairs and a screened-in one in the back with a swing.  It also had a jacuzzi that was so big Cooper thought it was a swimming pool, and a hot tub.  There was a little TV, but no Internet, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing.

The last morning we checked out of our cabin and then drove through Cade's Cove, where we saw some beautiful scenery and lots of wildlife: turkeys, deer (including a tiny, speckled fawn with its mother) and a mother bear with two little cubs.

It began to rain while we were in Cade's Cove, and we drove through rain most of the way home, but for the most part we had really nice weather while we were there and in Boone, even a little cooler than usual for this time of year.

It was a fun trip, and I'm thankful things worked out so that we got to take it.

Family Vacation '13 (Part 1 - Boone, NC)

We had already planned our family vacation before Don lost his job, so we decided to go ahead and do it.

We went first to Boone, NC, to visit my brother and his family.  We loved their mountain home, sitting in the chairs on their front porch and enjoying the beauty all around us!  It was great to see them, and Cooper had a fun time visiting with his cousins. 

We celebrated my sister-in-law's and my nephew's birthdays.

My very talented nieces gave us a wonderful concert, which included an impressive rendition of "The Itsy-Bitsy Spider."

They gave us a tour of the town and, among other things, we saw Samaritan's Purse, where my brother works.

 

Then we went on a hike and took in some of the beautiful scenery in the area.

 

On Sunday we went to church with them, then packed up and headed for the Smokies.

(to be continued)