From Cap Pistols to Works of Art

An old cap pistol, my Roy Roger's hat, put into a box with toy blocks. Corduroy trousers are neatly clean and folded. My sister's doll, with one eye glued open, covered with two of her dresses. It was rummage sale time at the Luxenberg Club. Not sure what the money raised from the rummage sale went for, I just knew it was one of Mom's things to do. Toys and things would disappear, later reappear on a table in the great hall of the Luxenberg Club. It was fun seeing all the things people donated. Bake sales were the other sales held to raise money. I was sent around the block with my wagon to collect things people donated. Mrs Erenst, who had a car, would pick up all donations and take them to the Luxenberg Club. Bake sales were held in St Joe's Church basement, cherry pies sat next to cupcakes and German chocolate cakes - all homemade. Mason jars filled with applesauce or homemade sauerkraut were there for sale. Even Mrs. Mathew sent two jars of pickles to the bake sale.  

Dad was known for fixing old electric motors, which were used for washing machines and table saws. Bricks from the old church Dad laid a patio for Mom with. Coffee cans of buttons waited for homemade shirts and coats, more cans sat in the basement filled with screws and nails. 

These days there are art sales. Sales of commissioned sunflower paintings raising money for kids from Ukraine. Another gallery raised money for homes of special needs people, and the homeless. Mom and Dad showed us ways of helping people in need, even when we were in need ourselves.     

Night Visions

It's a lonely drive at night through the country, full of visions and questions. A farm dog can be seen by a lone light. Surrounded by the black country, he sits as a guard.  Who lives in the farm houses I pass? Each lit up home brings that question and a vision of my Uncle Wally alone in his stuffed chair, with its pattern of flowers surrendering to years of sweat and wear.

I recall a night staying there, him asleep in that chair, me walking to the barn to check on the last of his cows with only that farm light showing the way. Arrow, his farm dog,  accompanying me.  Just inside the barn a opossum hisses at me from a corn barrel. Grabbing it by the tail, I pulled it from the barrel and walked it out of the barn, tossing it over the fence. Uncle Wally, now roused, standing in the mud room doorway, silhouetted by the kitchen lights, asks if everything is okay. I told him it was a opossum causing the trouble.

I remember that night as I drove home from an Art League meeting one night, and again, a vision of him brought on by a painting by Nick Freeman.  His painting of a lonely car speeding by a house at night reminded me of those drives home through the country after dark. Paintings do that to me. A painting of fireworks reminded me of pulling over on a dirt road to view distant festivities one Fourth of July night. Amazed by seeing the fireworks of each town in the valley. The flatness of the country around me inspires me as I sit watching the distant sparkles.  Its vastness with its blue skies during the days and white moon at night, small towns and fields of knee-high corn. As I drive on, a deer from the darkness jumps across the hood of my car. Breathing a bit more, I hold the steering wheel a bit tighter.